The Origin of April Fool's Day

All Fool's Day aka April Fool's Day is just round the corner. We can expect a barrage of ridiculous jokes, comes this April. There is no doubt that there would be many jokes related to the current on-going financial tsunami.

Have you ever wondered how did the April Fool's Day come about? Its origin is obscure and there are probably one thousand and one legends proffering the explanation for its origin. Many of these legends are as ridiculous as the jokes themselves. The most convincing legend, concerning the moving of New Year's Day to January the First, is offered below.

In the early sixteenth century, New Year's Day was observed at the advent of Spring (March) in France. Celebrations usually ran for about a week and usually ended with parties and feasts on April the First.

In 1564, King Charles of France proclaimed that New Year's Day be on January the First, to coincide with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was a reformed and more precise version of the existing one then.

Initially, of course there were many Frenchmen resistant to the change. Then, there were others who genuinely forgot about it. Those groups of people carried on their feasts and parties as usual. Those other accepting group tried to make fun of those conservatives who stuck to the old New Year's Day by sending them silly gifts and even fictitious invitations to non-existing parties.

In those days, the victim of the April Fool's Day joke was called poisson D'Avril or "April Fish" due to the fact that the sun was then leaving the Pisces zodiac sign, the fish. That practice of fun-making was so prevalent that all events happening on April the First were classed in that category. An interesting and significant event was that even Napoleon I, the French Emperor, was called "April Fish" when he married his second wife on April 1, 1810.

Thus, over these years, April Fool's Day has become a well-loved tradition in France. Almost two hundred years later, the tradition landed in England. From England, it then moved to the United States.