MikeLigalig.com

New Year's Day Moves

Ancient cultures, including those of the Romans and Hindus, celebrated New Year's Day on or around April 1.  It closely follows the vernal equinox (March 20th or March 21st.)  In medieval times, much of Europe celebrated March 25, the Feast of Annunciation, as the beginning of the new year.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calendar (the Gregorian Calendar) to replace the old Julian Calendar. The new calendar called for New Year's Day to be celebrated Jan. 1.  That year, France adopted the reformed calendar and shifted New Year's day to Jan. 1.  According to a popular explanation, many people either refused to accept the new date, or did not learn about it, and continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April 1.  Other people began to make fun of these traditionalists, sending them on "fool's errands" or trying to trick them into believing something false.  Eventually, the practice spread throughout Europe.


http://www.infoplease.com/


Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

Constantine and Kugel

Another explanation of the origins of April Fools' Day was provided by Joseph Boskin, a professor of history at Boston University.  He explained that the practice began during the reign of Constantine, when a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could do a better job of running the empire.  Constantine, amused, allowed a jester named Kugel to be king for one day.  Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day, and the custom became an annual event.

"In a way," explained Prof. Boskin, "it was a very serious day.  In those times fools were really wise men.  It was the role of jesters to put things in perspective with humor."

This explanation was brought to the public's attention in an Associated Press article printed by many newspapers in 1983.  There was only one catch: Boskin made the whole thing up.  It took a couple of weeks for the AP to realize that they'd been victims of an April Fools' joke themselves.


http://www.infoplease.com/

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

Observances Around the World

April Fools' Day is observed throughout the Western world.  Practices include sending someone on a "fool's errand," looking for things that don't exist; playing pranks; and trying to get people to believe ridiculous things.

The French call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish."  French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, crying "Poisson d'Avril" when the prank is discovered.


http://www.infoplease.com/

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

In Spain and Ibero-America, an equivalent date is December 28, Christian day of celebration of the Massacre of the Innocents.  The Christian celebration is a holiday in its own right, a religious one, but the tradition of pranks is not, though the latter is observed yearly.  After somebody plays a joke or a prank on somebody else, the joker usually cries out, in some regions of Ibero-America: "Inocente palomita que te dejaste engañar" ("You innocent little dove that let yourself be fooled").  In Spain, it is common to say just "Inocente!" ("Innocent!").  Nevertheless, in the Spanish island of Menorca, "Dia d'enganyar" ("Fooling day") is celebrated on April 1 because Menorca was a British possession during part of the 18th century.


wiki/

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

14. The Eruption of Mount Edgecumbe



In 1974 residents of Sitka, Alaska were alarmed when the long-dormant volcano neighboring them, Mount Edgecumbe, suddenly began to belch out billows of black smoke.  People spilled out of their homes onto the streets to gaze up at the volcano, terrified that it was active again and might soon erupt.  Luckily it turned out that man, not nature, was responsible for the smoke.  A local practical joker named Porky Bickar had flown hundreds of old tires into the volcano’s crater and then lit them on fire, all in a (successful) attempt to fool the city dwellers into believing that the volcano was stirring to life.  According to local legend, when Mount St. Helens erupted six years later, a Sitka resident wrote to Bickar to tell him, “This time you’ve gone too far!”

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

13. The Predictions of Isaac Bickerstaff



In February 1708 a previously unknown London astrologer named Isaac Bickerstaff published an almanac in which he predicted the death by fever of the famous rival astrologer John Partridge.  According to Bickerstaff, Partridge would die on March 29 of that year.  Partridge indignantly denied the prediction, but on March 30 Bickerstaff released a pamphlet announcing that he had been correct: Partridge was dead.  It took a day for the news to settle in, but soon everyone had heard of the astrologer’s demise.  On April 1, April Fool’s Day, Partridge was woken by a sexton outside his window who wanted to know if there were any orders for his funeral sermon.  Then, as Partridge walked down the street, people stared at him as if they were looking at a ghost or stopped to tell him that he looked exactly like someone they knew who was dead.  As hard as he tried, Partridge couldn’t convince people that he wasn’t dead.  Bickerstaff, it turned out, was a pseudonym for the great satirist Jonathan Swift.  His prognosticatory practical joke upon Partridge worked so well that the astrologer finally was forced to stop publishing his almanacs, because he couldn’t shake his reputation as the man whose death had been foretold.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

11. UFO Lands in London



On March 31, 1989 thousands of motorists driving on the highway outside London looked up in the air to see a glowing flying saucer descending on their city.  Many of them pulled to the side of the road to watch the bizarre craft float through the air.  The saucer finally landed in a field on the outskirts of London where local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion.  Soon the police arrived on the scene, and one brave officer approached the craft with his truncheon extended before him.  When a door in the craft popped open, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction.  The saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin Records.  The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks.  His plan was to land the craft in London’s Hyde Park on April 1.  Unfortunately, the wind blew him off course, and he was forced to land a day early in the wrong location.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

10. Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity



In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes.  The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth’s own gravity.  Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation.  When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation.  One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

8. The Left-Handed Whopper



In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a “Left-Handed Whopper” specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans.  According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers.  The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich.  Simultaneously, according to the press release, “many others requested their own ‘right handed’ version.”

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

6. Nixon for President



In 1992 National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation program announced that Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again.  His new campaign slogan was, “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t do it again.”  Accompanying this announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech.  Listeners responded viscerally to the announcement, flooding the show with calls expressing shock and outrage.  Only during the second half of the show did the host John Hockenberry reveal that the announcement was a practical joke.  Nixon’s voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

4. The Taco Liberty Bell



In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.  Hundreds of outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell is housed to express their anger.  Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed that it was all a practical joke a few hours later.  The best line inspired by the affair came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, and he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold, though to a different corporation, and would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

2. Sidd Finch



In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets.  His name was Sidd Finch and he could reportedly throw a baseball with startling, pinpoint accuracy at 168 mph (65 mph faster than anyone else has ever been able to throw a ball).  Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before.  Instead, he had mastered the “art of the pitch” in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the “great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa.”  Mets fans everywhere celebrated at their teams’s amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information.  But in reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the writer of the article, George Plimpton.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

Hmm, kon naay post nis Islander on April 1, bantay mo. Sureness ko nga foolishness jud na...

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0

He he, lingaw jamo ang nga Iskoola Pota...

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=48845.0