This Sunday is April Fools’ Day, the one day each year when people can pull off the most unoriginal tricks for a full 24 hours and get away with it.
So who should we blame for this monstrosity of a holiday? According to the History of April Fools Day explanatory video on YouTube, we can’t blame anyone. “We don’t actually know for sure what started the celebration of April Fools Day,” the video quickly concedes in the first 12 seconds.
But, we did learn a few things from the prosaic holiday in the two minute clip which has 2,700 views since its posting Wednesday.
The “most popular theory,” the video explains, is that it has something to do with the French before they flipped to the Gregorian calendar in the 1500s. Prior to converting calendar systems, the French celebrated New Years for eight days at the end of March. Once they changed to the Gregorian calendar, the eighth day moved from April 1 to Jan. 1 and a lot of people didn’t know that so people played pranks on them.
The video does a better job explaining it but we also learn some trite traditions around the world. In France, people try to tape a picture of a fish on your back without people knowing and in Portugal you get flour-bombed, thus making Kim Kardashian the earliest April Fools’ victim of this year.
On Sunday, stand guard and realize that Google is the only one passes off mildly amusing pranks.
Photo via YouTube