5 mass pranks on Fool’s day

April Fool’s day is believed to have started when in 1582 the New Year was shifted from April 1st to January 1st. This confused a lot of people who kept celebrating New Year on April 1st. These folks were called fools and thus began April Fool’s day. Nowadays many companies create elaborate pranks on April Fool’s day to amuse their customers and to increase brand recall. In the tech world, Google is known to launch multiple outlandish and fake products as April Fool’s prank.

Even before modern companies started the trend of yearly pranks which are anticipated by their customers, there were some amazing pranks pulled on an unsuspecting public. Here are some of the greatest pranks.

Pasta on trees

In 1957 BBC TV show “Panorama” showed Swiss spaghetti harvest enjoying a “bumper year” thanks to mild weather and the elimination of the spaghetti weevil. Most of the British public believed the story considering it was coming on the BBC. The story has been ranked the No. 1 April Fools’ hoax of all time by the Museum of Hoaxes website.

The new value of Pi

In 1998 a scientific magazine published an article claiming that the U.S.A.’s state of Alabama has hosted to change the value of Pi from 3.14159 to a Biblical value of 3.0. As it was the early days of the internet, the article spread around the world and caused people to call Alabama’s legislature protesting the change. Don’t you think it would have made our schooling easier if the change was accepted?

Corny porn

Pornhub, one of the biggest pornography sharing sites, changed its name on 2016 April Fool’s day to Cornhub and displayed suggestive videos featuring corn. That day left many users disappointed and many arms rested.

Tinder for Dogs?

Our furry friends also have ‘needs’ and what better way to solve them than an online dating service! On 2018 April Fool’s day, eHarmony unveiled a feature for providing dating help to dogs. The Canine Compatibility Companion Service was designed to get pups into long-term relationships. It also had posts from doggie Johnny Cash, a diminutive canine in search of an LTR (“no hookups, please”), and Kona, a hopeless romantic looking for a monogamous tug-of-war partner.

Volcano Eruption in Alaska

In 1974, Residents of Sitka, Alaska woke up to smoke coming out of Mount Edgecumbe, a dormant volcano. The resident became worried that the volcano has erupted. The mystery was solved when the Coast Guard sent a helicopter to investigate. When the helicopter approached the volcano, the smoke thickened till the helicopter was right above the crater. What the pilot saw amazed him. It was a huge pile of tires that were burning along with a spray-painted sign of “April Fool”. This was done by a local prankster who had been planning on this prank for four long years but had to wait for the right weather conditions. Talk about patience!

This prank became so successful that T-Shirts were made on it and it was used in the advertisement of Alaska Airlines.