Best classroom April Fools prank ever

A group of students decided to prank their instructor, after he established a policy that if a student’s phone rings during class, he or she must answer it on speakerphone, no matter the consequences. The best part of the prank is the professor’s reaction.

 

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April Foolery on the Web

April Fools' Day is a trial for readers of newspapers and other media as they attempt to spot the anagrams and other clues that tip the wink that a particular story is a work of fiction. BBC New Magazine has selected a round-up of some of this year's bizarre stories that are true, or seriously intended at least. Read about the ten stories that look like pranks but aren't HERE. Olivia B. Waxman, from TIME NewsFeed, writes about April Fool's 2013 and the 10 best pranks from aoround the web, among which are YouTube's announcement of shutting down and Google Nose (Beta). 'Google celebrates April Fool's Day in its usual style' is also a very interesting article about this web foolery, by Prasad, for Gsmarena Blog.

Image by Google Nose (Beta)

Nevertheless the above fabulous pranks, Harry MacCracken, from TIME Tech, explains what was Google’s Greatest April Fool’s Hoax EVER, which turned out to not being a hoax, after all! 'It was Google that kicked off the age of Internet April Foolery back in 2000, and the company continues to ratchet up the quantity and ambition of its hoaxes each year. I cheerfully concede that it does a much better job than most of the others which have followed its lead. Still, Google has never topped a prank it played in 2004 - one which was so effective that most people, to this day, don’t think of it as a prank. I speak of the launch of Gmail, on April 1, 2004. (...) But improbable though Gmail seemed - and despite the April 1 timestamp on the news - it was real. The hoax was that it wasn’t a hoax. Instead, it was one of the most important web services that anybody ever unveiled. Genius. Back in 2004, a gigabyte of online storage was such an impossibly copious amount that Google said it would eliminate the need to delete messages, period. Wrong! Now Gmail offers 10GB of space, and while that amount is generous, it’s far from being all the space anyone could conceivably need: I pay for 25GB of space and expect to fill it all up within the next few years. (At the moment, I have 13.5GB of stuff.) What seemed unimaginable in 2004 - enormous amounts of cloud storage, for free - is now utterly mundane, thanks in part to Gmail’s pioneering largesse.

Source: TIME Tech (abridged)

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The origins of April Fools Day

April Fools Day, sometimes called All Fools Day, is one of the most light-hearted days of the year. Its origins are uncertain. Some see it as a celebration related to the turn of the seasons, while others believe it stems from the adoption of a new calendar. 

New Year's Day date moves

Ancient cultures, including those of the Romans and Hindus, celebrated New Year's Day on or around April 1. It closely follows the vernal equinox (March 20th or March 21st.) In medieval times, much of Europe celebrated March 25, the Feast of Annunciation, as the beginning of the new year. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calendar (the Gregorian Calendar) to replace the old Julian Calendar. The new calendar called for New Year's Day to be celebrated Jan. 1. That year, France adopted the reformed calendar and shifted New Year's day to Jan. 1. According to a popular explanation, many people either refused to accept the new date, or did not learn about it, and continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April 1. Other people began to make fun of these traditionalists, sending them on 'fool's errands' or trying to trick them into believing something false. Eventually, the practice spread throughout Europe. There are at least two difficulties with this explanation. The first is that it doesn't fully account for the spread of April Fools' Day to other European countries. The Gregorian calendar was not adopted by England until 1752, for example, but April Fools' Day was already well established there by that point. The second is that we have no direct historical evidence for this explanation, only conjecture, and that conjecture appears to have been made more recently.

Constantine and Kugel

Image credits: CartoonStock

Another explanation of the origins of April Fools Day was provided by Joseph Boskin, a professor of history at Boston University. He explained that the practice began during the reign of Constantine, when a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could do a better job of running the empire. Constantine, amused, allowed a jester named Kugel to be king for one day. Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day, and the custom became an annual event. 'In a way,' explained Prof. Boskin, 'it was a very serious day. In those times fools were really wise men. It was the role of jesters to put things in perspective with humor.' This explanation was brought to the public's attention in an Associated Press article printed by many newspapers in 1983. There was only one catch: Boskin made the whole thing up. It took a couple of weeks for the AP to realize that they'd been victims of an April Fools' joke themselves.

In,  April Fools Day: Origin and History | Infoplease.com

(abridged)

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April Fools' Day happens on the first day of April, but do you know why we play tricks, gags and practical jokes on one another? 

History

In the 16th century, France celebrated the New Year just like we do today, except they partied on April 1st. In 1562, Pope Gregory changed the calendar to the one we use today and from then on, the New Year began on January 1st. Lots of people didn't know about the new calendar, or they ignored the new calendar and kept celebrating on April 1st. Everyone else called them April fools and played tricks on them.

Fools Around the World

In France today, April 1st is called Poisson d'Avril, which means April Fish. Children tape paper fish to their friends' backs and when the young 'fool' finds out, the prankster yells 'Poisson d'Avril'. In England, tricks can only be played in the morning. If a trick is played on you, you are a 'noodle'. In Scotland, you are called an 'April gow', which is another name for a cuckoo bird. In Portugal, April Fools' is best known as 'Dia das Mentiras'.

Practical Jokes on April Fool's Day

April Fools' practical jokes should be done in good fun and not meant to harm anyone. The best jokes are the clever ones where everyone laughs, especially the person who had the joke played on them.

Found information
@April Fools' Day (adapted)

Google is a great fun of April Fools...

The first Google April Fools's joke dates back 2000. Last year, Google April Fools' joke was about Gmail Motion '(...)which was a new way to communicate. The mouse and keyboard were invented before the Internet even existed. Since then, countless technological advancements have allowed for much more efficient human computer interaction. Why then do we continue to use outdated technology? Introducing Gmail Motion — now you can control Gmail with your body.'

Rumour has it, this year's Google doodle will be something like this...

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