Where Did April Fools' Day Come From?

On April 1, 1957 the BBC current-affairs program Panorama broadcast a report on a Swiss family harvesting their spring crop. The three minute segment was unexceptional in its presentation of a time-honored agricultural tradition in southern Switzerland, with the announcer dryly delivering details about the good weather, the lack of pests, and the uniformity of the produce.

The only remarkable thing about this educational segment was that the crop the Swiss family was so carefully picking from their trees was fresh spaghetti.¹

More than sixty years later, this BBC story is still considered the biggest April Fools’ hoax ever played by a reputable media organization.²(You can view it on YouTube.)

It’s estimated that more than eight million people watched the April 1st broadcast, meaning it was viewed by the majority of British homes having a TV set in 1957. The prank worked because pasta was not a common food in the U.K.

The next day the BBC was inundated with hundreds of phone calls, some questioning the authenticity of the report but many others asking how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC’s response was supposedly “place a sprig of dry spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”

How did we end up with a day where we expect and even applaud mass deception like this?

Throughout history, many cultures have had days where foolishness is celebrated and pranks are expected. The specific origins of our own April Fools’ Day are still a little murky. But scholars believe that it may have arisen after the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in the 16th century.

One of its biggest changes was moving New Year’s Day from the beginning of April to January 1st. As the new calendar was being adopted, those who were still going out to make their New Year’s Day visits on April 1st were teased for being “fools.”³

Folklorist Nancy Cassell McEntire notes that people expect April Fools’ Day pranks to be harmless and that the pranked is often expected to turn the tables on the prankster. If the victim isn’t laughing, too, then the April Foolishness has not worked.

In hindsight, if we could catalogue some of the many financial news predictions that never materialized, one might wonder if there aren’t more days in a news year like this most famous one. The difference is financial forecasters and pundits are actually not joking around.

Reminder: if your investment strategy has to rely on a short-term prediction about the future it’s probably taking some significant risks. Avoiding forecast-dependent strategies is a good way to avoid being one of the fooled.

So remember on April 1st that any outrageous or absurd news stories you see are probably hoaxes.

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