The most famous drawings on April 1

The first drawings on April 1 date back to the 16th century- this holiday can boast of a solid age. For example, on April 2, 1698, the British newspaper Dawks s NewsLetter reported that "Yesterday, April 1, several people were sent to the Tower to see how the lions were being washed." Since then Invitation of naive "victims" to the Tower to wash lions (a non-existent ceremony) became a popular April Fool's rally until the 19th century.

In Russia, the first mass rally on April 1 took place five years later - in 1703. The heralds walked the streets of Moscow and invitedresidents of the city to visit the "unheard of performance." There was no light from the spectators, but when the curtain fell open at the appointed time, instead of the speakers there was only a white cloth instead of the speakers, the inscription on which read: "The first April - do not trust anyone!". That's all the "unheard of performance."

But let's remember the more modern rallies on April 1. Many companies use this holiday to simultaneously increase their fame. For example, known fast-food chain of restaurants "Taco" on April 1, 1996 reported in the seven most famous newspapers in the US that she redeemed the Liberty Bellin order to reduce the country's national debt, andrenamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell". Thousands of people managed to express their protest, gathered in the national historical park in Philadelphia (there is a bell that in 1776 called people to announce the Declaration of Independence). But at noon on April 1 it was announced that it was an April Fool's Day rally.

Another American fast food chain, Burger King, On April 1, 1998 reported that in their menu appeared the so-called "left-side vopper"(The corporate hamburger of this restaurant chain),which was created specifically for lefties. All the ingredients in it were rotated 180 degrees. On that day and even a few days later, many people, making an order, specified that they needed an "old", "right-hand" vopper.

Mass media also do not miss the opportunity to arrange jokes on April 1. For example, On April 1, 1962, hundreds of thousands of Swedes, from the filing of national television, pulled nylon pantyhose onto TV screens. What for? The thing is that the only channel in the country that broadcast the programs in black and white was Kjell Stenson, the technical expert of the channel. He said that the new technology will allow viewers to watch the broadcasts in a color image, for this, and it is necessary to pull on the screen tights. In fact, color broadcasts in Sweden began exactly 8 years later, on April 1, 1980.

A The British newspaper "Guardian" on April 1, 1977 released a detailed article on seven pages about the island country of San Serriffelocated in the Indian Ocean. The article was devoted to the tenth anniversary of the independence of a fictional country. The name of the country is a pun that hints at one of the most common types of font (sans serif - a sans serif font, a chopped font). In the text of the article in general there were many jokes and puns related to typographical terms. The country itself was in the form of a semicolon, the big islands were called Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse (a hint of upper and lower case - uppercase and lowercase letters), etc. With this island, there were draws on April 1 in 1978, 1980 and 1999 . The April Fool's "Guardian" became a kind of classic of the genre.

But the first place in many ratings of famous April Fools' rallies invariably takes a rally about the spaghetti tree. In 1957, the Air Force in its program "Panorama" reported a record harvest of spaghetti in Switzerlandassociated with a warm winter and a victory overpest of macaroni trees - a macaroni weevil. On that day, the Air Force phones were simply torn from calls - thousands of Britons wanted to know more about growing pasta. But representatives of the British Broadcasting Corporation had prepared a diplomatic response: they advised putting macaroni in a jar of tomato sauce and hoping for the best.

In different years on April 1, the media reported on the replacementthe old mechanical Big Ben electronic, the rounding of the Pi number, the demonstration of Lenin's body in Paris Disneyland, the cloning of a dinosaur, the dismantling of the Eiffel Tower ... And every time there were people who believed in these rallies on April 1 - well, how can you not believe it solid media? Therefore, on the Day of Laughter, one must keep one's ears open, and if you are still "led" to a large-scale rally in the media - do not take everything to heart. Once a year it is permissible.