Don’t panic! I’m not playing a joke on you today – although hopefully you’ve remembered what today is, & not fallen for too many zany antics. Today is a day for laughter & silliness & practical jokes, but did you know that we don’t quite know where this tradition came from?

According the the Museum of Hoaxes, as far back as 1708 someone sent a letter to a British magazine asking this very same question:

“Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools?”

Long before this, the custom was well-established – but we really aren’t sure why. The calendar change theory seems plausible (when the week of the New Year used to start between March 25th and April 1st, but was obviously changed to be January 1st – & so those who still celebrated it the old way were “fools.”) until you really dig into history. That change didn’t occur in France until 1564, & there are possible references to this infamous date as far back as Chaucer in the 1300s! Check out all the origin information at the Museum of Hoaxes, by far the best place to find out everything about April Fools.

This site also chronicles all hoaxes they can locate in the April Fool’s Day Database, & offers a countdown of the Top 100 April Fool’s Jokes of All Time. I cannot believe some of the stuff that’s been done! Here are some of my favorites:

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, 1957: The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”

The Left-Handed Whopper, 1998: Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a “Left-Handed Whopper” specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, “many others requested their own ‘right handed’ version.”

World to End Tomorrow: On March 31, 1940 the Franklin Institute issued a press release stating that the world would end the next day. The release was picked up by radio station KYW which broadcast the following message: “Your worst fears that the world will end are confirmed by astronomers of Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. Scientists predict that the world will end at 3 P.M. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow. This is no April Fool joke. Confirmation can be obtained from Wagner Schlesinger, director of the Fels Planetarium of this city.” The public reaction was immediate. Local authorities were flooded with frantic phone calls. The panic only subsided after the Franklin Institute assured people that it had made no such prediction. The prankster responsible for the press release turned out to be William Castellini, the Institute’s press agent. He had intended to use the fake release to publicize an April 1st lecture at the institute titled “How Will the World End?” Soon afterwards, the Institute dismissed Castellini.

Don’t Disturb the Squirrels, 1993: Westdeutsche Rundfunk, a German radio station, announced that officials in Cologne had just passed an unusual new city regulation. Joggers going through the park would be required to pace themselves to go no faster than six mph. Any faster, it was felt, would unnecessarily disturb the squirrels who were in the middle of their mating season.

Spend some time looking through this amazing site today – you’ll shock your co-workers with your laughter!

The Hero Factory is basically the greatest thing you’ll find online! What could be more fun than creating superheroes, either in your own likeness or to match the caped crusaders of your imagination?

In this day & age where everyone loves comics (you can’t deny it!) & we don’t even question paying $9 to see the latest movie incarnation, this is fantastic way to waste away an afternoon. Once you’re done playing with the generator, you’re taken to a screen that looks like the cover of a comic book. They determine your ultra-amazing super-name based on the accessories you’ve chosen, & voila! Your alter-ego has been born!

You can save the image (as a .jpg) to your hard drive, or just print it out to hang on your wall.

I dare you to tell me I’m not badass.

I want to see what you create! Go forth & create thyself in the form of a masked avenger – you can use TinyPic to host your image & post the link in the comments. Let your imagination run wild!

from the January/February issue of Horn Book.

& that’s all I’ve got today. :)