"Dream, Dream, Dream! Conduct these dreams into thoughts, and then transform them into action."
- Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Today is the day of pranksters, the day when all your pranks are forgiven! But have you ever thought how this tradition which is hailing from centuries worldwide start from? One of the popular start of this tradition was in the World War I, where the soldiers started doing pranks like tying both shoe laces of their comrades and so on. This was done to lighten the tense and horror atmosphere of the war. But there is still no such concrete history of this day. Still there are some famous stories that are believed to be the origin of this ongoing tradition. I am definitely not fooling you if you might be thinking this as a prank! Cheers to this jolly day!
The Gregorian Calendar Switch
Until the second half of the 16th century, people living in Christendom followed the calendar established during the era of the Roman Empire. In this Julian calendar, the end of the modern calendar’s month of March was marked as the start of the new year. However, an egoistic pope Gregory XIII made an announcement that Christendom would switch to a new calendar named after himself. This shift was accepted widely by many people, but many were still not aware about it. They gained awareness slowly. That’s why the associates of Gregorian calendar called those who celebrated the New year on April 1 as per the Julian calendar as “April Fools”. There was a popular practice in France of sticking paper fishes to the back of those who were still stuck in the past and called those people as “April Fish”.
The Roman Festival of Hilaria
Ancient Romans partied hard. With loads of infamous feasts and wine soaked parties, they used to get rowdy with the celebrations. One such hilarious festival celebrated was Hilaria. Yes, the name of this festival truly finds a connection with the word hilarious as the festival has crazy week long celebrations. The festival was celebrated to mark the commencement of spring wherein the days were spent mourning and rest. But also there were days kept aside for joyous partying with costumed masquerades. This festival was celebrated in the last days of the month of March and ended on or around April 1, thus starting this weird festive tradition setting a stupid tone to the day.
The Vernal Equinox Explanation
This day of pranks and jokes can also be seen as one started by our Mother Nature herself! Puzzled? Well here’s an explanation to it. The phenomena of Vernal Equinox is the one when the day is longer than night, that is number of hours of day outnumber the number of hours of night in the calendar year. The equinox marks the start of the spring. But depending on the location and geographies, with variations is temperatures across the globe, the patterns of weather for this time of the year are highly unpredictable. Sometimes there is rain or even snow after a bright sunshine. It feels like nature is playing a prank on us in this period! Thus we see why nature is a reason for this day. Well this reason sounds weird as one of the origin stories for this day, still this is a belief behind the age old tradition.
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