APRIL Fools’ Day is celebrated on April 1st. April Fools’ Day is a yearly holiday celebrated with practical jokes, pranks, and hoaxes. Pranksters frequently reveal their prank to their victim by exclaiming loudly and proudly: “April Fool’s!” This ritual has been practiced for hundreds of years.
A Flemish poet penned some amusing lines about a nobleman who sends his servants on errands in preparation for a wedding feast in 1561 (the poem’s title approximately translates to “Refrain on errand-day / which is the first of April”). April Fool’s Day was first mentioned in Britain in 1686, when biographer John Aubrey defined April 1st as a “Fool’s holy day.”
Historians have also associated April Fool’s Day to festivities such as Hilaria (Latin meaning cheerful), a spring festival held in ancient Rome at the end of March by devotees of the religion of Cybele.
