April 1

April Fool’s Day rooted in serious controversy

By Mark Grainger

While most view April Fool's Day as a time to play practical jokes on family members, co-workers and even complete strangers, the origins of April Fool's Day are far more serious and can be traced back centuries.

The Julian Calendar, established by Julius Caesar in 46 b.c., was used throughout Europe and while it defined many of the characteristics of our current calendar, it started the year on a different day. Many ancient cultures began their year close to the vernal equinox (March 20th or 21st), the Julian Calendar celebrated New Year's Day on April 1st.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced a new calendar, the Gregorian Calendar, and issued the order that this new Calendar would replace the Julian Calendar. The major change between the two calendars was the startling decision to begin the year on a new day. That day was the first day of January. This decision was not particularly popular and many countries simply refused to adopt the new Calendar. England, Scotland and Germany, among others did not adopt the new calendar for 58 years or more. England actually held out until 1752.

France, being an early adopter of the new calendar, faced issues with their people accepting this new idea. Some simply did not accept the change, while others were simply ignorant of the change and the practice of celebrating New Year's Day on April 1st continued. The hip and trendy French who had accepted this new idea began to view these traditionalists as being a few eggs short of a dozen and found entertainment sending these late adopters on tasks which could not be completed or tricking them into believing a blatant lie.

The French refer to April 1st as Poisson d'Avril. For those who are not familiar with the French language, poisson is "fish" and Avril is April. So literally, this term means "Fish of April". The beginning of April marked the end of Lent, in which fish was often used to replace meat, from which Christians would abstain during Lent. It is thought that fish was not a popular food item during the month of April and therefore made an excellent throwing weapon to abuse those traditionalists who did not wish to celebrate the New Year when they were supposed to. Children make use of paper fish representations, attached to their victims, to play a joke on their schoolmates.

When England finally did accept this new calendar, the tradition of picking on the "fools" was also adopted and spread quickly to the colonies, including those in America.