Probably every spaghetti farmer knows, that the most anxious time for the annual spaghetti harvest is at the end of March, since all over Europe severe frost can impair the flavor of the spaghetti. In case you wonder, if this is not just a joke\u2026you are right! The documentary of the BBC about the annual spaghetti harvest is indeed a joke, in fact it\u2019s an April Fools\u2019 joke. It was the first April Fools\u2019 joke on television and was broadcasted in 1957. Since everyone is familiar with the tradition of playing jokes to friends or colleagues at the first of April, the question comes up, where this tradition has its origins and if the first April Fools\u2019 joke is known.<\/p>\n
In Grimms Deutschem Woerterbuch<\/em> from 1854 a definition of the word April Fool, \u201cAprillsnarr\u201d, can be found. There is also evidence for the expression \u201cto play an April Fools\u2019 joke on someone\u201d even earlier. It can be found the first time in 1618 in Bavaria, Germany, but it is believed, that the tradition dates even far more back.<\/p>\n There are a lot of speculations about the origin of the April Fools\u2019 joke tradition, but many are believed as unlikely. For instance the changeful weather in April serves as an attempt to explain the origin, but the tradition is also known in regions where the weather in April is stable. A more possible explanation is a story about Henry IV. who received a letter from a sixteen year old girl, inviting him to a rendezvous, but when arriving at the meeting place the royal household as well as his wife appeared, expressing their gratitude that he accepted the invitation to the ball.<\/p>\n Quite a likely explanation describes the April Fools\u2019 joke as a spring tradition, where the April Fool represents the powerless winter, with whom the advancing summer can do whatever he pleases. The present-day April Fools\u2019 joke could be a variation of this. Another quite reasonable, though completely different, attempt to explain is to associate the first of April with a religious fatal day. The first of April is believed to be the birthdate of Judas and it was obvious, that the day the man was born who betrayed Jesus must be a fatal day. It then became common to play jokes on people on that same day to avoid more harm.<\/p>\n A lot more religious aspects as well as likely or unlikely explanations for the April Fools joke can be found, but hard evidence for one of them still clearly misses.<\/p>\n Stefan Kuhn<\/p>\n Read More:<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/onthisday\/hi\/dates\/stories\/april\/1\/newsid_2819000\/2819261.stm<\/a><\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.religioeses-brauchtum.de\/sommer\/aprilscherz.html<\/a><\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Deutsches Woerterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, Bd. 1, Leipzig 1854<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Probably every spaghetti farmer knows, that the most anxious time for the annual spaghetti harvest is at the end of March, since all over Europe severe frost can impair the flavor of the spaghetti. In case you wonder, if this is not just a joke\u2026you are right! The documentary of the BBC about the annual… Read More »What is the best time for the annual spaghetti harvest?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1754"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1763,"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions\/1763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/junq.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}