April Fools’ Day lands on April 1 every year, the one day when a fake news story, a salt-filled sugar bowl or a too-good-to-be-true announcement gets a pass. The next April Fools is on Thursday, April 1, 2027, and the countdown above tells you exactly how long you have to plan a prank or prepare your defenses.
Nobody knows exactly how it started
The origins of April Fools’ Day are genuinely unclear, and several popular explanations do not hold up well. One theory links it to France switching New Year’s Day from spring to January 1 in the 16th century, with people who kept the old date mocked as fools. The trouble is that references to April 1 pranks appear even earlier.
- Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (around 1392) contains a story in which a vain rooster is tricked on a date some readers interpret as April 1, though scholars think it may be a copying error.
- A French poem from 1508 mentions a poisson d’avril, an “April fish,” which is still the French name for an April Fools’ prank.
- A Flemish poem from 1561 describes a nobleman sending his servant on pointless errands on April 1.
- In 1686 the English writer John Aubrey called the day “Fooles holy day,” and in 1698 people in London were tricked into going to the Tower of London “to see the Lions washed.”
Traditions around the world
In the UK the unwritten rule is that pranks end at noon; anyone who plays a trick after midday becomes the fool. Scotland traditionally called the day Huntigowk Day, when victims were sent to deliver a sealed note reading “Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile,” which simply sent them on to the next person. In France, Belgium and Italy, kids try to tape paper fish to people’s backs. The US has no noon rule, so you need to stay alert all day. Spanish-speaking countries have a similar tradition on December 28, the Day of the Holy Innocents.
Hoaxes that went down in history
In 1957 the BBC program Panorama aired a straight-faced report about Swiss farmers harvesting spaghetti from trees, and many viewers called in asking how to grow their own. In 1996 Taco Bell ran newspaper ads claiming it had bought the Liberty Bell and renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. And on April 1, 2004, Google announced Gmail with a free gigabyte of storage, so much at the time that many people assumed it was a joke. It was real.
Harmless prank ideas
- Put googly eyes on everything in the fridge.
- Swap the cream filling in sandwich cookies with toothpaste, for adults who can take it.
- Set a coworker’s autocorrect to change a common word into something silly (and change it back the same day).
- Serve “meatloaf cupcakes” frosted with mashed potatoes.
- Wrap a desk or monitor in sticky notes or foil.
The golden rule: a good prank ends with everyone laughing, including the target. Skip anything that damages property, frightens people or could be mistaken for a real emergency.
Countdown tips
Planning a big office prank or a family joke? Add April 1 to your calendar from this page or share the countdown link with your co-conspirators. Just keep it out of the target’s group chat.