April fool’s day: the best historical pranks
Do you like pulling pranks on your friends and family? Are you a natural-born prankster? If yes, then take inspiration from these classic, historical best April Fool’s Day pranks, which rank funniest of all times.
We have complied a list of historical pranks that may surprise you.
The Great Spaghetti Harvest
This is one of the most famous April Fool’s Day pranks of all time. BBC’s famous Spaghetti Harvest Segment. In 1957, a BBC news show reported that Swiss farmers enjoyed a bumper spaghetti crop. The camera showed footage of people picking spaghetti off trees then sitting down at the tables to eat the “real home-grown spaghetti”. During this time, Pasta and Spaghetti was not a dish that British people knew about, so it was something new for them. No one realized that it would be a prank by BBC. Many viewers called BBC to ask how they could grow their own spaghetti trees and crops at home. Now, this is a funny prank.
Prankster in a bottle
Back in 1749, a London newspaper advertised that a man would squeeze his entire body in a bottle and sing in it in an upcoming show. The advertisement stated that while the man will be inside the bottle, any person may handle it and there will be other tricks as well. But it turned out that the advertisement was a bet among the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Chesterfield. The duke had stated that he advertises anything impossible and still find fool enough people in London to fill a full house for the play and it turned out to be true as there were numerous people who showed up to watch a man squeeze his entire body inside a bottle, but no performer ever showed up.
Stealing treasure of America
Back in 1905, a German newspaper called the Berliner Tageblatt announced that some thieves had dug a tunnel underneath the U.S. Federal Treasury in Washington, D.C and successfully stolen silver and gold. It stated that heist had been organised by American robbers Barons who dug the tunnel for up to 3 years and managed to steal $268 million and how the U.S. authorities were trying to hunt down the robbers while covering the fact from the public that the country had been robbed. This piece of story spread quickly before people realised it was an April Fool’s Day prank by Louis Viereck, who was a New York correspondent for the Berliner Tageblatt who happened to publish the joke under a fake name.
Sidd Finch
This prank is considered as one of the best April Fool’s Day pranks ever in the sports world. In 1985, a story came out on an unknown New York Mets prospect named Sidd Finch. Apparently, the story stated that Finch could throw a baseball 168 miles per hour (that means more than 60mph faster than the fastest pitch ever thrown, till today), play the French horn and wore only one shoe. Coaches and Met players went along with this story. Many fans and media outlets religiously followed this story until the magazine admitted that it was a prank after 15 days.
Running for President… Again
Richard Nixon is one of the most reviled U.S. presidents because of Watergate. In 1992, on National Public Radio, “Talk of the Nation”, he announced that he would be running for president 18 years after resigning in disgrace. There were even fake clips of Nixon saying, “I never did anything wrong, and I won’t do it again” in his announcement speech. There was immediate public response, but it was highly negative. However, in the second half of the program it was revealed that it was a prank.
Jovian- Plutonian Gravitational Effect
BBC does it again. Back in 1976, BBC radio network reported that on April 1, at 9:47 am, the alignment of Jupiter and Pluto would lead to a powerful gravity combination that would decrease the gravity on Earth. It was told that if people would jump at the right moment, they would get a floating sensation. Surprisingly, many people called BBC radio reporting unique effects that they experienced; however, it was quickly revealed that the story was a mere prank.
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