194 Fun Facts About April Fools' Day

Which English poet's 1392 tale of the cock Chauntecleer is a disputed early reference to April Fools' Day?

Geoffrey Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale seems to set the fox's trick 32 days after March began, but many scholars blame a scribal slip and place it in early May.

The earliest clear reference to April Fools' Day is a 1561 poem by Bruges writer Eduard de Dene in which language?

Eduard de Dene wrote in Flemish; his 1561 poem has a nobleman send his servant on absurd errands on 1 April, and the servant suspects he is being sent on a fool's errand.

Which author called 1 April 'the day upon which we are reminded of what we are' the rest of the year?

Mark Twain gave the line to Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, sayings credited to a small-town lawyer his neighbours have written off as a fool, which head each chapter of the 1894 novel.

In France, Italy and Belgium, what do pranksters try to attach to a victim's back on 1 April?

A paper fish is taped on unnoticed; the 'April fish' is said to stand for a young spring fish that is easily caught, like a gullible person.

One theory says the first 'April fools' were French people who kept celebrating which holiday around 1 April?

New Year's Day was fixed on 1 January by royal edict in 1564, and the story says those still feasting in late March were mocked; historians doubt it, since April fooling is recorded in 1561.

On 1 April 1698, several Londoners were tricked into going to the Tower of London to see what?

The lions being washed was a ceremony that never existed, yet the trick ran for well over a century; by the 1850s jokers were printing official-looking admission tickets.

In the United Kingdom, tradition holds that April Fools' pranks must stop at what time of day?

In the UK, April Fools' pranks traditionally stop at noon; anyone who plays a joke after midday is said to become the fool.

What is Scotland's April Fools' prank of sending someone off with a sealed 'Dinna laugh, dinna smile...' note called?

Hunt the Gowk uses the Scots word for a cuckoo, a byword for a fool; the sealed note reads 'Hunt the gowk another mile', so each reader passes the bearer on.

In Scotland, what was traditionally pinned to people's backs on the day after April Fools' Day?

Paper tails, often bearing an unflattering message, were pinned on unnoticed on 'Tailie Day', which stretched Scotland's fooling over two days.

Iran's 'Lie of the Thirteenth' pranks are played on the thirteenth day of which new-year festival?

Nowruz ends on its thirteenth day with Sizdah Be-dar, when Iranians leave the house to picnic outdoors and play the 'lie of the thirteenth' on one another, around 1 or 2 April.

Spain's prank day, Día de los Santos Inocentes, falls three days after which major holiday?

Christmas comes three days before 28 December, when Spain and Hispanic America play 'inocentadas' such as false news stories; the feast itself mourns the children killed in the Nativity story.

Humorina, the 1 April humour festival and parade founded in 1973, belongs to which Ukrainian city?

Humorina is Odesa's festival of laughter, started by the city's KVN comedy team in protest after Soviet censors took the KVN contest off television.

Poland's April 1 prank belief is so strong that a 1683 alliance signed that day was officially dated to when?

The 1683 Polish–Austrian alliance with Leopold I was backdated to 31 March so nobody would take it for an April Fools' joke.

What is the Danish word for an April Fools' prank or its victim?

Aprilsnar names both the prank and the person fooled; Danish news outlets each run one made-up story on 1 April.

On 1 April 1957, the BBC current-affairs programme Panorama aired a three-minute report showing Swiss farmers harvesting what from trees?

Spaghetti was still an exotic dish in 1950s Britain, so hundreds of viewers phoned the BBC, many asking where they could get a tree of their own.

Which respected broadcaster's voice-over made the BBC's 1957 pasta-harvest hoax so believable?

Richard Dimbleby had anchored Panorama since 1955 and was among the most trusted voices in Britain, so the producers borrowed his authority to sell the joke.

The BBC's 1957 pasta harvest was supposedly gathered beside Lake Lugano in which Swiss canton?

Ticino is Switzerland's Italian-speaking canton, and the narration set its pasta orchards there, 'on the borders of Switzerland and Italy'.

Which branch of the British military was formed on April Fools' Day 1918, late in the First World War?

The Royal Air Force was created by merging the army's Royal Flying Corps with the navy's Royal Naval Air Service, and both older services ceased to exist that day.

In 1980 the BBC announced that which London landmark's clock face was going digital?

The BBC World Service reported that Big Ben's clock face would go digital, offering the old hands to the first listeners who called in.

Which astronomer told BBC Radio 2 listeners in 1976 that a planetary alignment would let them float if they jumped?

Patrick Moore told Radio 2 listeners that a rare planetary alignment would briefly weaken Earth's gravity, and callers duly reported a floating sensation.

In 1962, Swedish television told viewers they could get colour TV by stretching what over the screen?

A nylon stocking would bend the light into colour, technical expert Kjell Stensson told viewers; thousands tried it, and real colour broadcasts waited until 1970.

The Guardian's 1977 April Fools' island San Serriffe took its place names from puns on what?

Typography supplied the names, from the islands Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse to General Pica, yet the paper's phones rang all day with readers asking about holidays there.

The map of The Guardian's fictional San Serriffe was drawn in the shape of which punctuation mark?

A semicolon was the shape of designer Geoffrey Taylor's map, printed in a seven-page supplement whose joke adverts real companies paid for.

In which animated series does a son's April Fools' revenge with a shaken beer can put his father in hospital?

The Simpsons aired the episode on 1 April 1993: Bart's exploding can hospitalises Homer, and the bedside memories let an overworked staff fill the half-hour with old clips.

Which author, known for participatory journalism, wrote the Sidd Finch hoax for Sports Illustrated?

George Plimpton was asked for a piece on sporting April Fools' jokes, found too few, and got leave to invent his own; almost 2,000 readers wrote in.

Which social network announced in 2013 that it would charge $5 a month to use vowels?

Twitter named the vowel-free tier 'Twttr', which really had been the service's name when it was created in 2006.

Taco Bell's 1996 April Fools' claim to have bought the Liberty Bell sent angry callers to the bell's home in which city?

Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park was flooded with outraged calls, and officials held a press conference to deny any sale before Taco Bell owned up hours later.

In 1992, National Public Radio reported that which former president would run for the White House again?

NPR's Talk of the Nation announced Richard Nixon's surprise 1992 candidacy, complete with an impersonator's voice; outraged listeners flooded the switchboard.

What was Google's first April Fools' hoax in 2000, which asked users to stare into a circle and picture their search?

MentalPlex answered every attempt with a joke error, such as 'Brainwaves received in analog. Please re-think in digital.'

Gmail's real launch on 1 April 2004 was widely taken for a hoax because it promised how much free storage?

1 gigabyte was hundreds of times the 4 megabytes or less that rival webmail offered, and Google was already known for 1 April spoofs, so many dismissed the news outright.

Which Roman midwinter festival of role reversal is often proposed as an ancestor of April Fools' Day?

Saturnalia let slaves pretend to rule their masters while a mock king reigned in late December; the likeness is striking, but a direct line to 1 April is thought unlikely.

Which soul singer's death on 1 April 1984 was initially disbelieved because of the date?

Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father on 1 April 1984, the day before his 45th birthday, and many first took the news for a prank.

Which singer's death on 31 March 1995 was at first taken by radio listeners for an early April Fools' joke?

Selena was shot by the former president of her fan club; when San Antonio station KEDA broke the news, many accused its staff of lying because the next day was 1 April.

Which magazine's April 1995 issue reported the 'hotheaded naked ice borer' of Antarctica?

Discover's April 1995 issue described a creature that melted the ice under penguins to catch them; its discoverer, 'Aprile Pazzo', is Italian for April fool.

Which British tycoon's UFO-shaped balloon alarmed motorists outside London on the eve of April Fools' Day 1989?

Richard Branson meant to land his flying-saucer hot-air balloon in Hyde Park on 1 April 1989; wind blew it off course and it came down a day early, where police were called.

A Dutch rhyme puns on the town name Den Briel to say the Duke of Alba lost what on 1 April 1572?

His glasses: 'bril' is Dutch for spectacles, so 'Op 1 april verloor Alva zijn bril' recalls the day rebels took Den Briel from Spain, a turning point in the Dutch revolt.

The Iranian festival on which the 'Lie of the Thirteenth' is played involves throwing what into moving water?

Sprouted greens, the sabzeh grown for the Haft-Seen table, are thrown into running water as the picnic ends; young singles first knot the stems to wish for a partner.

Taco Bell's 1996 April Fools' ad said buying the Liberty Bell would help reduce what?

The national debt was the ad's excuse; the full-page hoax ran in major newspapers, and Taco Bell admitted the joke within hours.

Electronic Gaming Monthly's 1992 April Fools' hoax sent players hunting a secret boss named Sheng Long in which arcade hit?

Street Fighter II fans were primed by a mistranslated win quote, 'You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance', which really named Ryu's Dragon Punch, not a hidden master.

The Spanish-speaking world's prank day, the Day of the Holy Innocents, marks which biblical king's massacre?

Herod the Great's massacre of Bethlehem's infants is commemorated on the Day of the Holy Innocents, when Spanish media run elaborate fake stories.

What phrase do Germans shout to reveal an Aprilscherz?

'April, April!' ends the Aprilscherz; Germans say the victim has been 'sent into April' (in den April geschickt), an idiom already in the Grimms' dictionary of 1854.

In the traditional Irish April Fools' prank, what do the words inside the 'important letter' say?

The 'important letter' reads 'send the fool further', so each recipient forwards the victim on to yet another person.

Which satirist's 1708 April Fools' hoax as astrologer 'Isaac Bickerstaff' foretold the death of a rival almanac-maker?

Jonathan Swift predicted that astrologer John Partridge would die on 29 March, then published news of the death, and Partridge struggled to convince London he was still alive.

Which Indian spring festival is often named among the possible ancestors of April Fools' Day?

Holi, when revellers pelt friends and strangers with coloured powder and water, is one of several spring festivals of licensed mischief proposed as forerunners, none of them proven.

Sweden's April Fools' rhyme 'April, april, din dumma sill' calls the victim a silly what?

Herring is the 'sill' of the rhyme, which goes on 'jag kan lura dig vart jag vill': I can trick you wherever I want.

Which US landmark's 'collapse', reported by a TV comedy show on April Fools' Day 1989, set off panicked emergency calls?

The Space Needle had fallen, said a spoof news flash on Seattle's Almost Live!; so many viewers believed it that the station had to apologise.

What is April Fools' Day called in Poland?

Prima aprilis is Latin for 'the first of April'; Poles long treated the day as so unserious that they avoided doing anything important on it.

Where in Spain is 1 April celebrated as 'Dia d'enganyar' because of British rule in the 1700s?

Menorca kept the 1 April habit from its 18th-century British rulers as Dia d'enganyar, while most of Spain saves its pranks for the Day of the Holy Innocents.

Which South American country marks 1 April as 'Dia da mentira', its day of the lie?

Brazil fools on 1 April as Dia da mentira, while its Spanish-speaking neighbours save their pranks for the Day of the Holy Innocents.

On 1 April 1978, businessman Dick Smith thrilled Sydney by apparently towing what into the harbour?

An iceberg from Antarctica, he said, to be carved into ice cubes at ten cents each; then rain washed off the foam and shaving cream, baring plastic sheets on a barge.

Which artist and activist founded New York City's annual April Fools' Day Parade in 1986?

Joey Skaggs, a veteran media hoaxer, has announced the parade by press release every year since 1986, promising floats that lampoon the year's leading fools.

The press release for New York's April Fools' Day Parade says it heads down Fifth Avenue to finish in which park?

Washington Square Park is where the release has a King or Queen of Fools crowned after the march from 59th Street; its founder has sent one out every year since 1986.

Who made the first British reference to April Fools', calling it 'Fooles holy day' in 1686?

John Aubrey wrote that 'we observe it' on the first of April and that Germany kept it everywhere; his notes stayed unpublished in his lifetime.

In 1971 the Texas House unanimously passed an April Fools' resolution honouring which notorious criminal?

The Boston Strangler was praised under his real name, Albert DeSalvo, for his work in 'population control'; sponsor Tom Moore wanted to show that members passed resolutions unread.

Which biblical episode did a 1789 newspaper claim as the origin of April Fools' Day?

Noah sending out the dove too early, before the waters had fallen, was the first 'sleeveless errand', London's Public Advertiser joked, and April fools were sent on theirs in its memory.

A deadpan paper in the April 1972 Veterinary Record described the diseases of which household 'species', Brunus edwardii?

Teddy bears' lost limbs and thinning fur were written up as clinical conditions, complete with sketches of a worn bear, in the vets' journal's April Fools' issue.

Which coffee chain announced 'Plenta' and 'Micra' cup sizes on 1 April 2010?

Starbucks' 2010 April Fools' post introduced the 128-ounce Plenta and the 2-ounce Micra as new cup sizes.

Which real 1946 event on 1 April was tragically mistaken by some for a hoax?

Aleutian Islands tsunami warnings went unheeded by some in Hawaii on 1 April 1946; the waves killed more than 150 people, and the disaster led to the Pacific's tsunami warning system.

Which country became the first to recognise same-sex marriage, on 1 April 2001?

The Netherlands' same-sex marriage law took effect on 1 April 2001, and Amsterdam's mayor married four couples just after midnight.

Which comedian's death at the end of March 2005 was doubted because the news broke around April Fools' Day?

Mitch Hedberg died in a New Jersey hotel room at 37; the news spread just as 1 April arrived, and many fans took the reports for a hoax.

Which soap's cancellation after 72 years, announced on 1 April 2009, was taken for a joke?

Guiding Light began on radio in 1937 and moved to television in 1952; CBS announced the end on 1 April, so some cast and crew assumed a prank.

What was the Roseanne episode titled 'April Fools' Day' actually about?

The title was the joke: the episode follows the Conners scrambling to file their taxes on 15 April, Tax Day.

Which US state was falsely reported in 1998 to have legislated pi as 3?

Physicist Mark Boslough's April 1998 spoof claimed Alabama had legislated pi to the 'biblical value' of 3; it spread by email as genuine news.

What genre is the 1986 film April Fool's Day?

Slasher on the surface: college friends vanish one by one at an island mansion, until the ending reveals every death was staged as their host's elaborate prank.

Bryce Courtenay's 1993 book April Fool's Day is named for the date of what?

His son's death: Damon, a haemophiliac infected with HIV by a blood transfusion, died on 1 April 1991, and the author of The Power of One wrote the tribute because Damon had wanted a book about love.

What penalty have Thai police warned could await people who post April Fools' fake news online?

Five years in prison is the most Thailand's computer crime law allows for false information that causes public panic, and police have repeated the warning in several years.

Which senior BBC figure was himself fooled by Panorama's 1957 pasta-harvest hoax?

The director-general, Sir Ian Jacob, was among those taken in: editor Michael Peacock had kept the film a secret from almost everyone at the BBC until it aired.

Whose taunt gave a cameraman the idea for the BBC's 1957 pasta-harvest hoax?

His schoolteacher in Vienna used to tell the class they were stupid enough to believe pasta grew on trees; Charles de Jaeger remembered the jibe and pitched it to Panorama decades later.

What budget did Panorama's editor give for filming the 1957 pasta-harvest hoax?

£100 was enough for editor Michael Peacock to say yes: the cameraman was already due to film in Switzerland, so the three-minute hoax would cost little extra.

After its 1957 pasta-harvest hoax, where did the BBC jokingly tell viewers to plant a sprig?

A tin of tomato sauce: as hundreds of callers kept asking how to grow their own, BBC staff settled on a stock reply, to place a sprig in one 'and hope for the best'.

Which network called the 1957 pasta-harvest report the biggest hoax a reputable outlet ever pulled?

CNN gave the Panorama film that title in 2009; the trick had worked because pasta was still an exotic delicacy that few Britons ate.

What did Sidd Finch wear on his feet when he pitched?

One heavy hiker's boot and one bare foot was Finch's pitching outfit, and the Mets played along: they gave the magazine's stand-in a real uniform for the photographs.

Where did Sidd Finch supposedly learn the mind-body mastery behind his fastball?

Tibet is where the article sent Finch after he dropped out of Harvard, to study under 'the great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa'; Nepal was only where his adoptive father died in a plane crash.

Who posed as Sidd Finch in the Sports Illustrated photographs?

A junior high art teacher from Oak Park, Illinois, Joe Berton was cast by the photographer, a friend he sometimes assisted; the Mets lent him a uniform and let him sit in their bullpen.

What hidden message did the first letters of the Sidd Finch subhead spell out?

The subhead's initial letters spelled 'Happy April Fools' Day'; even so, two general managers phoned the commissioner about Finch.

Which letter did a 2013 April Fools' column claim the Royal Spanish Academy was dropping from the alphabet?

Ñ would give way to a double n, as in medieval spelling, so España would become Espanna, said the spoof by Puerto Rican linguist Aida Vergne, which claimed crowds were already protesting outside the Academy.

Which BBC serial's theme tune did the Today programme claim on 1 April 2004 Brian Eno would remix?

The Archers' jaunty 1924 maypole dance, 'Barwick Green', was said to be out of step with a village now full of scandal, so BBC bosses had supposedly hired Brian Eno to update it.

What did a Triple J radio April Fools' hoax say Australia had been stripped of?

The Olympic Games, due in Sydney in September 2000, had supposedly been taken away; the state premier, Bob Carr, played along with a solemn speech, and a TV presenter repeated the news as fact.

What did White House press secretary Mike McCurry joke had also been sold in the Taco Liberty Bell prank?

The Lincoln Memorial, McCurry deadpanned, was going to Ford and would become the Lincoln-Mercury Memorial; in truth Washington had no bell to sell, because the federal government does not own it.

What did hundreds gather at Beachy Head to watch sail past after a 2001 radio hoax?

A replica of the Titanic, said Brighton's Southern FM, was the work of the 'AFD Construction company'; so many listeners crowded one spot on the cliffs that the ground cracked.

What came with Google Romance's free 'Contextual Dates' in a 2006 hoax?

Adverts ran through the whole date: Google said it would pay for the outing while 'delivering to you relevant ads', a send-up of how it funds its free services.

Where was the 1977 hoax island San Serriffe going to sit before a real air disaster forced a move?

Near Tenerife was the plan until two jumbo jets collided there on 27 March 1977, killing 583; with days to go the paper moved its islands to the Indian Ocean.

Which country will the drifting island of San Serriffe eventually collide with?

The supplement said erosion on its west and deposition on its east made San Serriffe creep across the Indian Ocean towards Sri Lanka.

Which real country's shrunken outline was the basis for the San Serriffe map?

New Zealand's outline, shrunk by designer Geoffrey Taylor, gave the hoax its two islands; airlines and travel agents later complained about customers who refused to believe the place did not exist.

Which camera company sponsored a photo competition asking for pictures of San Serriffe?

Kodak ran an advert inviting readers' holiday photos of San Serriffe; themed adverts helped the hoax grow into a seven-page supplement.

Which computer scientist has paid bug bounties with cheques from the fictitious Bank of San Serriffe?

From 2008 Donald Knuth switched his famous error-reward cheques to 'deposits' at the Bank of San Serriffe, after cheque fraud made real ones risky.

Which race did a 1981 Daily Mail hoax say a Japanese runner was still running, thinking it lasted 26 days?

The London Marathon had been run days earlier; the paper blamed a translation slip, 26 days for 26 miles, and asked readers to look out for Kimo Nakajimi on England's roads.

What is the 'dihydrogen monoxide' that got two Florida radio hosts suspended after an April Fools' on-air warning in 2013?

Plain water was all it was; their warning that it was flowing from local taps brought enough worried calls that the utility put out a statement saying the supply was safe.

What did Nathan Zohner title his 1997 science project on 'dihydrogen monoxide'?

'How Gullible Are We?' won first prize at his Idaho Falls science fair: 43 of the 50 ninth-graders he surveyed voted to ban the chemical and only one saw through it.

A 1990 News of the World hoax claimed the two halves of which project would miss each other by 14 feet?

The Channel Tunnel was then being dug from both coasts at once; the paper blamed French engineers working in metric while the British used feet and inches.

Which product did Aliso Viejo, California, nearly ban in 2004 because 'dihydrogen monoxide' goes into making it?

Foam cups were reprieved when the council pulled the vote: a paralegal had trusted a spoof website, and the city manager called the episode embarrassing.

Which Monty Python director presented the BBC's 2008 flying-penguins hoax film?

Terry Jones, who directed Life of Brian, seemed to stand among the colony in Antarctica as it took off; the Daily Mirror splashed the story across its front page that morning.

The BBC's flying-penguin hoax credited a filmmaker whose name was an anagram of what?

The film was credited to 'Prof Alid Loyas', whose letters rearrange to 'April Fools Day'.

Which species of penguin starred in the BBC's 2008 flying-penguins hoax?

Adélie penguins took off from King George Island and flew to the Amazon in the trailer; the BBC followed it the same day with a making-of film showing how the flight was faked.

What BBC service was the 2008 flying-penguins hoax made to promote?

BBC iPlayer got its plug at the end of the 90-second trailer; the Daily Telegraph, in on the joke, reported the 'remarkable footage' as news and carried the clip on its website.

Which Soviet leader supposedly posted the 1984 Kremvax Usenet message?

Konstantin Chernenko's name was on the forged post because Usenet behind the Iron Curtain seemed absurd in 1984; six years later a genuine Moscow site joined and named its gateway kremvax in tribute.

The 1984 'Kremvax' post, supposedly from the Kremlin, was really forged by a programmer in which city?

Amsterdam was home to Piet Beertema of the CWI research centre, who forged the post and waited two weeks, as replies poured into his own mailbox, before revealing the trick.

An early-1970s joke internet memo, RFC 527, parodied which nonsense poem?

Jabberwocky became 'ARPAWOCKY', which opens 'Twas brillig, and the Protocols' and warns 'Beware the ARPANET, my son'; near-annual April Fools' RFCs followed from 1989.

What does RFC 1149, the 1990 April Fools' RFC, propose transmitting IP datagrams on?

Avian carriers means birds: the memo has each datagram printed on a paper scroll and taped to a bird's leg, a joke a Norwegian user group actually carried out in 2001.

What appliance does the 1998 April Fools' RFC 2324 control?

A coffee pot gets its own BREW command and 'coffee:' web addresses in the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol, whose rationale puns that it was 'designed espressoly' for the job.

Which physics laboratory announced on 1 April 2015 that it had confirmed the Force exists?

CERN's release quoted 'theorist Ben Kenobi of the University of Mos Eisley' and a 'diminutive green spokesperson', and claimed a librarian already used the Force to reshelve books.

Which campaign group claimed in 2000 it would drug a Texas lake so the fish slept through an angling tournament?

PETA said the bass of Lake Palestine would be 'napping, not nibbling'; Texas officials took the threat seriously enough to send rangers to guard the lake before the group admitted the joke.

Which two planets were supposedly aligning in the 1976 BBC gravity hoax?

The 'Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect' had Jupiter and Pluto aligning to weaken Earth's gravity; Pluto was still classed as a planet in 1976.

What did a 1965 BBC April Fools' broadcast claim it could transmit to viewers' homes?

Smell was the promise: a man in the studio demonstrated with coffee and onions, and viewers rang in to say the aromas had reached them at home.

What did Dutch viewers rush to buy after an April Fools' TV report about scanners catching licence-fee dodgers?

Aluminium foil, the report implied, was the one thing that would hide a set from the inspectors' scanners; sales jumped the next day and overdue licence fees came flooding in.

Which two game show hosts swapped places for April Fools' Day 1997?

Alex Trebek hosted Wheel of Fortune while Pat Sajak hosted Jeopardy! on 1 April 1997; Sajak and Vanna White played as Wheel contestants.

Which cartoon character 'seized control' of Cartoon Network on April Fools' Day 1997?

Screwy Squirrel 'took over' the channel: the 1944 Tex Avery short Happy-Go-Nutty aired on a loop for most of the day.

Which city did a 1949 radio April Fools' hoax say a mile-wide wasp swarm was heading for?

Auckland's 1ZB announcer Phil Shone warned listeners that the swarm was nearing the city; so many believed him that the head of the broadcasting service publicly condemned the prank.

Which two late-night hosts swapped shows on April Fools' Day 2022?

Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon were direct rivals in 2022, on air at the same hour on ABC and NBC, so each studio audience was pranked when the other network's host walked out.

Which Wisconsin newspaper's 1933 April Fools' front page showed the statehouse dome toppling?

The Capital Times of Madison put a doctored photo of the falling dome on its front page and reported that a series of blasts had brought it down, a dig at the hot air the legislature had generated.

What did San Diego's KGB-FM claim on 1 April 1993 would land at a local airfield?

The Space Shuttle Discovery was said to be diverting to Montgomery Field; more than 1,000 people turned up, though no shuttle was even in orbit, and police billed the station for traffic duty.

Which radio duo was fired for announcing on 1 April 1998 that Boston's mayor had died?

Opie and Anthony said Mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car crash, with fake reports from a policeman and a reporter; their station sacked them, and the mayor complained to the broadcasting regulator.

What did YouTube do to its entire video layout on 1 April 2009?

YouTube flipped it upside down on video pages for the day, claiming modern monitors give a better picture that way, and advised viewers to turn their screens over, tilt their heads or move to Australia.

Which inventor did the New York Graphic claim in 1878 had built a soil-to-cereal machine?

The New York Graphic's 1 April 1878 story said Thomas Edison had invented a machine that turned soil into cereal and water into wine; other papers reprinted it as fact.

What was the 'monster' carcass pulled from Loch Ness in a 1972 April Fools' hoax actually?

A dead elephant seal, a bull that had died the week before, was dumped in the loch by Flamingo Park Zoo's John Shields to fool his own colleagues; police seized the 'monster' from their van.

Which fake sponsor has NPR credited on April Fools' Day?

The Soylent Corporation, 'manufacturing protein-rich food products in a variety of colors', was credited as a nod to the film Soylent Green; NPR owned up the next week when it read out listeners' letters.

Which band's fans rushed to a Cork shopping centre in 2009 for a hoax rooftop concert?

RedFM told listeners U2 were playing a surprise rooftop gig at a Cork shopping centre; the band on the roof was the tribute act U2opia.

How did the Berliner Tageblatt's 1905 hoax say thieves had emptied the US Treasury of its gold and silver?

By tunnelling underneath, said the paper: backed by American millionaires, the gang had supposedly dug beneath the Potomac; newspapers across Europe reprinted the story as news.

What did Duolingo's 2019 April Fools' 'Push' feature send to nag lapsed users?

Its mascot, Duo the owl, would 'literally show up' to remind lapsed learners, the spoof video promised; the company's marketing chief said memes about its practice reminders had inspired the joke.

Which rival Belgian comics magazine swapped cover designs with Tintin on 1 April 1965?

Spirou's editor Yvan Delporte devised the swap with his rivals at Tintin: each cover was redrawn, logo and layout included, to pass for the other magazine.

Which columnist's 1975 April hoax claimed a computer had proved chess's best opening move?

Martin Gardner's April 1975 Scientific American column listed six fake discoveries, including a computer proof of a winning chess opening.

Which emperor supposedly named a jester king for a day, per a 1983 hoax that fooled the Associated Press?

Boston University's Joseph Boskin told the AP that Constantine I let his jester Kugel rule for a day; the invented story ran nationwide.

What happened on the comics pages on April Fools' Day 1997?

Cartoonists drew each other's strips in the Great Comics Switcheroonie: 46 took part, with Dilbert's Scott Adams drawing The Family Circus and Garfield turning up in Blondie.

Which Paris newspaper claimed in 1986 that the Eiffel Tower would be moved to Euro Disney?

Le Parisien's 1 April 1986 front page said the Eiffel Tower would be dismantled and rebuilt at the planned Euro Disney park, with an Olympic stadium on its site.

Which Star Wars creature inspired a ThinkGeek April Fools' sleeping bag that became a real product?

Tauntaun fits because Han Solo shelters Luke inside one on the ice planet Hoth; ThinkGeek posted the bag as an April Fools' gag, and it proved popular enough to be made for real.

Which airline announced the world's first 'glass-bottomed plane' on 1 April 2013?

Virgin Atlantic promised every passenger the chance to 'look down on the beautiful scenery of Great Britain', a joke timed to the launch of its first domestic flights.

Following Playboy's lead, what did National Geographic announce on 1 April 2016 that it would stop publishing?

Photographs of naked animals had to go, it tweeted: it would 'no longer degrade animals by showing photos of them without clothes', a dig at Playboy, which had just sworn off nudes.

Which joke HTTP status code was introduced by the 1998 April Fools' RFC 2324?

RFC 2324 defined 418 I'm a teapot as a teapot's error reply, adding that the response 'MAY be short and stout'; when a standards chair moved to retire the joke in 2017, developers rallied and kept it.

What joke chip did Signetics publish a spoof datasheet for?

Write-only memory, a chip that stores data nobody can ever read back, was a Signetics engineer's joke; its spoof datasheet charted 'number of pins remaining vs. number of socket insertions'.

How did prankster 'Porky' Bickar fake a volcanic eruption at Sitka, Alaska?

Burning 70 kerosene-soaked tyres in the crater of Mount Edgecumbe sent black smoke over Sitka; the Coast Guard pilot sent to investigate found 'APRIL FOOL' sprayed in the snow beside them.

What did King's College, Cambridge claim in 2014 it would use instead of boy trebles?

Men who had inhaled helium would replace the boy trebles, the choir's spoof video said, because the older singers had vetoed 'the surgical solution'; a choral scholar then took a gulp from a balloon to reach the top note.

Which technology company was founded on April Fools' Day in 1976?

Apple began on 1 April 1976, when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set up a company to sell the Apple I computers they were building in Jobs's garage; Microsoft had started a year earlier, on 4 April 1975.

Which video-game character was 'murdered' in a free visual novel released on 31 March 2023?

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog was Sega's surprise April Fools' release, a free mystery set at Amy Rose's birthday party; it passed a million downloads within a week.

In a classic prank, what replaces the cream filling in a sandwich cookie?

White toothpaste is spread in after the cream is scraped out, so the cookie looks untouched until the first minty bite.

What Vocaloid-style character began as a 2008 April Fools' joke on Japan's 2channel?

Kasane Teto was unveiled by 2channel users on 1 April 2008 as a fake new Vocaloid; the joke singer got a real voicebank that year in the free UTAU, and a Synthesizer V one in 2023.

What did Australia's This Day Tonight tell viewers in an April Fools' report that the country was converting to?

Metric time was the spoof: the ABC current-affairs show reported that the 24-hour clock was being scrapped for a decimal one, and viewers who fell for it rang the show.

What earlier 4chan bait-and-switch trick did Rickrolling grow out of?

Duckrolling began when a 4chan word filter turned 'eggroll' into 'duckroll' and users baited each other with links to a picture of a duck on wheels; Rickrolling took over in 2007.

Which song did every featured video on YouTube's home page lead to on 1 April 2008?

'Never Gonna Give You Up' played whichever featured video you clicked: YouTube had rickrolled its own home page, and its British and Australian sites joined in.

What was Google UK's 2010 April Fools' Android app called?

Translate for Animals claimed to turn a pet's noises into English, and Google UK really did put a joke app on Android Market that offered silly translations for each animal.

In 2010, The Independent claimed which London Underground line would house a second Large Hadron Collider?

The Circle line's existing tunnel was the attraction: the spoof said physicists could fit a small 'atom smasher' beside the trains at a fraction of the cost of digging a new ring.

Which impressionist voiced the 'former president' in NPR's 1992 April Fools' candidacy hoax?

Rich Little supplied the voice for NPR's Talk of the Nation hoax, and host John Hockenberry owned up only in the second half of the show, after shocked listeners had flooded the phone lines.

What did Google's 2002 hoax claim really powered its PageRank system?

Pigeons, said Google: 'PigeonRank' had flocks of them peck a bar whenever a relevant page flashed past, and the most-pecked results were listed first, in 'pecking order'.

What did Google Gulp, a spoof drink announced on April Fools' Day 2005, promise to boost?

Your intelligence: a DNA scanner in the bottle's lip would tune the drink to your brain, Google claimed, and the only way to get a bottle was to hand in a used cap from someone who already had one.

What did Google TiSP, a 2007 April Fools' hoax, use to deliver broadband?

Toilets and sewage lines carried the signal: users were told to flush a weighted fibre-optic cable and wait an hour for a 'Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher' to plug in the other end.

What did Gmail Paper offer to do with your emails in a 2007 hoax?

Print and mail them for free was the offer: Gmail Paper would post you as many of your emails as you liked, paid for by bold red adverts printed on the back.

With which company did Google announce a hoax plan to settle Mars in 2008?

Virgin Group and Google called their joint venture 'Virgle' and invited volunteers to apply as 'Virgle Pioneers', the first of hundreds of Mars colonists.

What did Gmail Custom Time (2008) claim to let users do?

Pre-date their messages: Gmail Custom Time claimed to slot an email into the past of the recipient's inbox, though the small print capped its slogan 'Be on time. Every time.' at ten uses a year.

What was CADIE, Google's 2009 April Fools' invention?

A self-aware artificial intelligence was the story: Google said its 'Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity' had a mind of her own, and her handiwork turned up across its products for the day.

Which Kansas city did Google jokingly rename itself after in 2010?

Topeka had temporarily called itself 'Google' to court the company's fibre project.

What did Google's 2010 hoax claim you could upload to Google Docs?

Physical objects like keys could be 'uploaded' and then found with CTRL+F, Google Docs claimed; you could even upload a piano in New York and download it in California, at $0.10 per kg.

What did Gmail Motion (2011) claim to replace typing with?

Body gestures, read by your webcam, would replace keyboard and mouse, Gmail Motion claimed: you opened a message by miming an envelope and replied by pointing a thumb back over your shoulder.

What did Google Maps' 2013 April Fools' mode turn the map into?

A pirate treasure map took over because, Google claimed, its Street View divers had found Captain Kidd's long-lost chart and needed the public's help to decode its symbols.

Which much-mocked font did Google announce in 2011 as the new default for all its products?

Comic Sans had come top of 41 fonts in its user testing, Google claimed; searching for 'helvetica' that day also turned the whole results page into the mocked typeface.

Which game company helped Google build its 8-bit Quest version of Maps for April Fools' Day 2012?

Square Enix lent its support to the joke, in which Google promised to release Maps as the first NES cartridge in nearly 18 years and offered a trial version to play online in the meantime.

What input did the 2012 hoax Gmail Tap use for typing?

Gmail Tap replaced the keyboard with two Morse-code keys; Google later added real Morse input to Gboard in 2018.

Which motorsport did Google claim to be entering with self-driving cars in 2012?

NASCAR was named as partner in 'Google Racing', a spoof built on a real project: the post boasted that Google's self-driving cars had already covered 200,000 test miles.

With which satire outlet did YouTube claim in 2013 that it was closing to pick the best video?

The Onion helped make YouTube's 2013 video, which said the site had only ever been a contest: entries were closing, and it would return in 2023 to post the single winning video.

What was Google Nose, unveiled on April Fools' Day 2013?

A search feature that adds scents: Google Nose promised users a sniff of whatever they searched for, drawing on an 'Aromabase' of 15 million 'scentibytes' collected by its 'Street Sense' cars.

Which 2014 Google Maps April Fools' hunt later inspired a real hit mobile game?

Pokémon Challenge scattered wild Pokémon across Google Maps for players to catch; after seeing it, Niantic's founder proposed the real-world game that became Pokémon Go in 2016.

Which celebrity did Google say it would randomly insert into your Google+ photos in 2014?

David Hasselhoff, 'everyone's favorite crime-fighting rockstar lifeguard' in Google's words, would wander into your Google+ photos if you left him some room in the frame.

What did visitors to the domain com.google find on 1 April 2015?

A mirror-image Google homepage was the point of the address: com.google is google.com back to front, so the page and every search result on it were flipped too.

Which song did YouTube suggest on music searches on April Fools' Day 2015?

Sandstorm by Darude was the 'Did you mean' suggestion, a nod to the meme of answering any 'what song is this?' question with 'Darude – Sandstorm'; a button could also add the track to any video.

What did Google Chrome's 2012 'Multitask Mode' hoax let you use at the same time?

Two mice at once was Chrome's cure for an idle second hand: the spoof said it could handle every mouse, stylus and joystick you plugged in, and its demo filled the screen with extra cursors.

What did the 2016 Gmail 'Mic Drop' button insert into sent emails?

A Minion GIF, of the character dropping a microphone, went out with the email and silenced the thread; Google switched 'Send + Mic Drop' off within hours after people hit it by accident on serious messages.

Which rapper fronted YouTube's 2016 April Fools' hoax, a button to watch any video in 360 degrees with him?

Snoop Dogg gave his name to 'SnoopaVision', which promised to make every YouTube video viewable in 360 degrees with Snoop watching alongside you.

What was Google Cardboard Plastic (2016)?

A transparent viewer with no phone slot was the whole joke: where Cardboard showed virtual reality, 'Cardboard Plastic' was a clear headset that showed only the real world in front of you.

What was Google Gnome, the 2017 April Fools' product?

A voice assistant for the backyard: say 'Ok Gnome' and it would tell you what sound an opossum makes or trim your hedges with high-intensity lasers.

What did Google Wind (2017) claim Dutch windmills could do?

Blow away rain clouds: Google Wind claimed machine learning would spot bad weather coming and set the country's old windmills turning together, promising clear skies for everyone.

What was Google's 2017 Mars data centre nicknamed?

Ziggy Stardust, as Google Cloud nicknamed its Mars facility, would let customers keep 'planet-redundant' copies, so their cat videos would survive an asteroid strike on Earth; you could tour it in Street View.

Google Translate's 2017 April Fools' joke added Heptapod B, the alien language of which film?

Arrival's aliens write in circular logograms; Google said it had built the camera translator with Dr. Louise Banks, the film's fictional linguist, and that it would keep working for 3,000 years.

Which arcade game could you play on Google Maps on 1 April 2017?

Ms. Pac-Man took over the Maps app: tap the pink button and you were dropped onto the streets of a random spot in the world, with five lives to outrun the ghosts.

What did a 2018 Google Australia hoax claim Aussies had started calling the company?

Googz, the post claimed, was the Aussie nickname, in the spirit of 'Maccas'; after months of 'rebranding' with designer Jazza, the new logo came out exactly the same, plus a green 'z'.

What classic game could you play on Google Maps in several cities in 2019?

Snake ran in the Maps app for about a week: your train picked up passengers at landmarks from the Eiffel Tower to the Great Sphinx, and the game ended if it ran off the map or into itself.

What did Google Nederland's 2019 flower app claim to translate?

Tulip root signals into speech: Google Tulip claimed to let anyone chat with the flowers, which its researchers said they had studied first because of the country's long history with them.

What kitchen utensil did Google Japan's 2019 Gboard hoax use for typing?

A bendable spoon typed a different character depending on how hard you bent it, Google Japan claimed, and its announcement signed off by saying a fork version was under consideration.

How were the keys laid out on the joke keyboard Google Japan unveiled on 1 October 2022?

One long row held every key, about 1.6 metres from end to end; Google Japan joked that two people could type on it together, and published the build files so anyone could make one.

What shape was Google Japan's 2024 double-sided novelty keyboard?

A Möbius strip: the keys run right around a twisted, double-sided loop so that, Google Japan joked, several people can type on the same keyboard at once.

In a classic April Fools' kitchen prank, what is swapped into the sugar bowl?

Salt looks just like sugar, so the victim finds out with the first sip of morning coffee; another household classic is cling film stretched across the toilet bowl.

What claim did Burger King make about its 1998 'Left-Handed Whopper'?

Condiments were rotated 180 degrees, the advert said, to suit left-handers; Burger King later reported that thousands had asked for one, while other customers insisted on the 'right-handed' original.

Which invented animal does a 1998 hoax website ask readers to save in the Pacific Northwest?

Tree octopus pages by a writer calling himself Lyle Zapato blame its decline on logging and house cats; teachers use the site to test web literacy, and a class of seventh-graders shown it in one study overwhelmingly believed it.

In NPR's 1992 April Fools' hoax, the 'candidate' denied any wrongdoing and added which promise?

'I won't do it again' closed the fake comeback slogan, voiced by an impressionist; shocked listeners flooded NPR with calls before the show owned up in its second half.

Which goddess was honoured at the ancient Roman Hilaria festival, sometimes linked to April Fools'?

Hilaria honoured Cybele, the Great Mother, around 25 March with games and masquerades in which anyone could impersonate even magistrates.

What retro operating system did Microsoft's 2015 April Fools' claim to bring to Lumia phones?

MS-DOS Mobile was more than a video: Microsoft released a real app that turned a Lumia into a DOS prompt, its designers describing the look as 'Courier New meets film noir'.

After a giant container ship blocked it in 2021, which waterway did an April Fools' story say would get a twin?

The Suez Canal had just been cleared of the Ever Given when the spoof reported UN plans for a 'Suez 2' along the Egypt-Israel border, citing a study by a tunnelling expert named Iver Shovel.

On 1 April 1989, a staged brawl broke out behind which BBC Grandstand presenter as he praised his team's professionalism?

Des Lynam was the presenter; the fight among staff behind him was revealed as an April fool only at the end of the programme.

Which BBC radio programme featured a spoof theatrical manager, Sir Harry Whitlohn, in 1963?

Desert Island Discs gave Roy Plomley a made-up castaway on 1 April 1963: 'Sir Harry' claimed Brahms had borrowed a childhood tune of his for a symphony, and chose a mountain as his luxury.

In 1992, Norfolk, Virginia DJs falsely reported leaking methane at which landfill-turned-park?

Mount Trashmore Park in Virginia Beach really is built on a capped landfill, which made WNOR's methane-explosion bulletin plausible enough to flood police lines with calls.

Which website's 2017 April Fools' experiment let each user colour one pixel of a shared canvas every few minutes?

Reddit called it Place: a canvas of a million pixels where the wait between tiles stopped anyone drawing much alone, so people had to team up to draw anything big.

Which rock star read from the 'biography' of Nat Tate, an artist who never existed, at its 1998 April Fools' launch party?

David Bowie was in on the hoax: his publishing house issued William Boyd's spoof life of the painter, and guests at the New York party spoke of Tate as if they had heard of him.

In which newspaper did Burger King's 1998 'Left-Handed Whopper' advert appear?

Burger King's full-page Left-Handed Whopper ad ran in USA Today on 1 April 1998; the next day it admitted the joke and said thousands had asked for one.

What mummified creature did a 2007 April Fools' hoax claim was found in Derbyshire?

Fairy remains eight inches long, with wings and red hair, were the work of magicians' prop maker Dan Baines; even after he confessed, some people insisted they were real, and the model sold online for £280.

What did Google Australia's 2008 'gDay with MATE' claim to let you search?

Pages a day before they were created could be searched, Google Australia claimed, thanks to 'MATE' (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation), which would also predict share prices and sports results.

Which 2009 Gmail 'feature' claimed to read your mail and write your replies for you?

Gmail Autopilot promised to read and answer your email in your own style, but warned that two Autopilot accounts could trade only three messages each before the replies went downhill.

What new name did Volkswagen of America falsely announce in a 2021 April Fools' stunt?

Voltswagen was announced in an official statement as the US arm's new name, and major news outlets reported it as real before Volkswagen admitted it was an early April Fools' joke.