April Fools Day dates back to 1564, when France changed from the traditional Roman calendar, which celebrated New Year's Day on April 1st, to a new calendar which shifted the new year to January 1st. In those days, news didn't travel very fast, so the metrosexuals teased the country bumpkins by inviting them to nonexistent parties, sending them on "fool's errands", and playing practical jokes on them on April 1st.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XXIII adopted this calendar, named it after himself, and made it the standard by which all others would be measured. As it took root throughout Europe (Scotland in 1660, Germany, Denmark, and Norway in 1700; and England in 1752), the tradition of playing jokes on the yokels followed it.
Today its history is all but forgotten, but after it hopped across the ocean to America, it grew to such proportions that not only were jokes played on uninformed peasants, but on everyone who was gullible enough to fall for them, as is the American way and the basis for our electoral process.
posted by Wyld Card at
2:07 AM
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