The April Fool's Story - John Gospel Edoho

April fool is associated with cultures, most especially the pop-culture. Some have expressed the belief that the origins of April Fool's Day may go back to the Genesis flood narrative. In a 1908 edition of the Harper's Weekly cartoonist Bertha R. McDonald wrote that authorities gravely back with it to the time of Noah and the ark. The London Public Advertiser of March 13, 1769, printed: "The mistake of Noah sending the dove out of the ark before the water had abated, on the first day of April, and to perpetuate the memory of this deliverance it was thought proper, whoever forgot so remarkable a circumstance, to punish them by sending them upon some sleeveless errand similar to that ineffectual message upon which the bird was sent by the patriarch". This a fabricated semblance and not meant to be a doctrine anywhere.
On April 1, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to "see the Lions washed" many received free ticket yet such event never hailed.

The day is not a public holiday in any country except Odessa in Ukraine, where the first of April is an official city holiday. For the first time this holiday arose in 1973. April Fool prank is revealed by saying "April First, trust nobody" at the recipients.

A fictional story is told about a man named Steve April who was born on 1st April 1579. He did 105 businesses in his lifetime. He lost all his father's assets, and so everyone started calling him father of all fools. At 19, Steve April married a 61-year-old woman who divorced him after a year because of his foolishness. Eventually all those that believed this story are being fooled because the end of the story accompanies that "He used to tell all kind of foolish lies and read all kinds of fake stories like you are doing now" (This story has variations and can be short changed to further fool recipient)

In Nigeria, an April Fool prank is sometimes later revealed by shouting "April fool!" at the recipient, who becomes the "April fool". A study in the 1950s, by folklorists Iona and Peter Opie, found that in countries whose traditions got influenced from the UK, the joking ceased at midday. So it will be unethical to prank someone after mid day.
Serious activities are usually avoided, and generally every word said on April 1 can be untrue. The conviction for this is so strong that the Polish anti-Turkish alliance with Leopold signed on April 1, 1683, was backdated to March 3 rendering the alliance a joke.

In one famous prank in 1957, the BBC broadcast a film in their Panorama current affairs series purporting to show Swiss farmers picking freshly-grown spaghetti, in what they called the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest. The BBC were later flooded with requests to purchase a spaghetti plant, forcing them to declare the film a hoax on the news the next day.

The sociological purview is that April Fools' can be good cultural practice for people's health because it encourages "jokes, hoaxes...pranks, and belly laughs", and brings all the benefits of laughter. whereas on the contrary, theoretical dysfunctionalist may describes April Fools' hoaxes as "creepy and manipulative", "rude" and "a little bit nasty", as well as based on deceit. The mixed opinions of critics are epitomized in the reception to the 1957 BBC "Spaghetti-tree hoax", in reference to which, newspapers were split over whether it was "a great joke or a terrible hoax on the public". Yet, happening on the date isn't supposed to be taken seriously anywhere.
Google is well known for the annual April Fools' jokes, which they have done in 2000, 2002, and every year since 2004 except 2020. On April Fool's Day 2006, Google Romance was announced on the main Google search page with the introduction, "Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance." It pretends to offer a "Soulmate Search" to send users on a "Contextual Date". A parody of online dating. Clicking these gave an error page, which explained that it was an April Fool's joke and included links to previous April Fool's jokes. However, by observation google announces some of their actual products, as a form of viral marketing.

Shortly before midnight on March 31, 2004, Google announced the launch of Gmail. However, it was widely believed to be a hoax, since free web-based e-mail with one gigabyte of storage was unheard of at the time. Also on April 1, 2016, Google introduced a new feature for Google Photos, allowing users to search their photos using emojis, many others.

Google decided to forego year 2020 April Fools' jokes due to the Coronavirus pandemic, urging their employees to contribute to relief efforts, and managing fake news instead.
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Written by John Gospel Edoho