Saturday, April 1, 2006

Foolhardy


I love to learn about the history of words, places and dates. I've found some interesting theories on the origins of April Fool's Day.

From The Museum of Hoaxeswebsite: "The most widespread theory about the origin of April Fool's Day involves the Gregorian calendar reform of the late sixteenth century. The theory goes like this: In 1582 France became the first country to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar established by the Council of Trent (1563). This switch meant, among other things, that the beginning of the year was moved from the end of March to January 1. Those who failed to keep up with the change, who stubbornly clung to the old calendar system and continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March 25th (known in England as Lady Day) and April 1st, had various jokes played on them. For instance, pranksters would surreptitiously stick paper fish to their backs. The victims of this prank were given the epithet Poisson d'Avril, or April Fish. Thus, April Fool's Day was born."

There are many, many songs with fool or even April fool in the title or lyrics, but this is my favorite.
Merrymakers -- April's Fool mp3

2 comments:

  1. I'm incredibly guillable so I loathe April Fools' Day - just too many chances for ppl to make me look stupid. I'm happy it was a saturday this year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Man...I can't believe you didn't post Rufus' 'April Fools'. Geez, Donna. lol
    You have such a curious mind.

    ReplyDelete