How did April Fools Day originate?
Haven’t tracked down a definative answer here so I’ll supply Wiki’s review of possible theories. The origin of this custom has been much disputed. Many theories have been suggested. What seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year’s Day, the 25th of March, ended on the 1st of April. It has been suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French [2]. France was one of the first nations to make January 1 officially New Year’s Day (which was already celebrated by many), by decree of Charles IX. This was in 1564, even before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar (See Julian start of the year). Thus the New Year’s gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or did not hear about the change were fair game for those wits who amused themselves by sending mock presen
Apparently, you aren’t the first to ponder the origins of April Fools’. While researching your question, we stumbled across this poem: The first of April, some do say, Is set apart for All Fools’ Day. But why the people call it so, Nor I, nor they themselves do know. But on this day are people sent On purpose for pure merriment. –Poor Robin’s Almanac (1790) It’s an apt sign of the ambiguity surrounding the holiday. As we discovered in our search, everyone has a theory, but few agree on how the tradition arose. Still, we’ll try to get as close to the truth as possible. We began in Yahoo!’s April Fools’ Day History category, under Holidays and Observances > April Fools’ Day. The first site, Snopes, has an interesting th
