Origin of April Fools Day, how it started, why it is celebrated April 1

The April Fools’ Day or All Fools’ Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as April Fools Day, it is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when people play all kinds of practical jokes and hoaxes on each other.

The jokes and their victims are called April fools. People playing April Fool jokes often expose their prank by shouting April Fool at the unfortunate victim(s). 

Some newspapers, magazines and other published media report fake stories, which are usually explained the next day or below the news section in small letters. Although popular since the 19th century, the day is not a public holiday in any country.

From the 1400s, Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” (featuring Chauntecleer the rooster) popularized April Fools’ Day as a holiday when people play practical jokes on each other. Starting in the 1880s, different cultures began observing “April Fish” holidays. In Scotland and Ireland, for example, fools are tricked into searching for things that don’t exist (such as “the gowk,” a kind of cuckoo bird). Meanwhile, France celebrates a similar custom called “April Fish” or “poisson d’avril” with paper fish stuck to each other’s backs. Today, people give out April Fools’ Day news stories and allow reporters to say any outlandish thing they want. Some of these news stories have even become urban legends!