Japanese scientists have developed an oral
vaccine for Alzheimer's disease that has proven effective and safe in mice.
April fools pranks that worked:
1. In 1957, a BBC television show announced that thanks to a mild winter and the virtual elimination of the spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. Footage of Swiss farmers pulling strands of spaghetti from trees prompted a barrage of calls from people wanting to know how to grow their own spaghetti at home.
2. In 1985, Sports Illustrated magazine published a story that a rookie baseball pitcher who could reportedly throw a ball at 270 kilometers per hour (168 miles per hour) was set to join the New York Mets. Finch was said to have mastered his skill -- pitching significantly faster than anyone else has ever managed -- in a Tibetan monastery. Mets fans' celebrations were short-lived.
3. Sweden in 1962 had only one television channel, which broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert appeared on the news to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to receive color pictures by pulling a nylon stocking over the screen. In fact, they had to wait until 1970.
4. In 1996, American fast-food chain Taco Bell announced that it had bought Philadelphia's Liberty Bell, a historic symbol of American independence, from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Outraged citizens called to express their anger before Taco Bell revealed the hoax. Then-White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale and said the Lincoln Memorial in Washington had also been sold and was to be renamed the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial after the automotive giant.
5. In 1977, British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page supplement for the 10th anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semicolon-shaped islands. A series of articles described the geography and culture of the two main islands, named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse.
6. In 1992, US National Public Radio announced that Richard Nixon was running for president again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." They even had clips of Nixon announcing his candidacy. Listeners flooded the show with calls expressing their outrage. Nixon's voice actually turned out to be that of impersonator Rich Little.
7. In 1998, a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.
8. Burger King, another American fast-food chain, published a full-page advertisement in USA Today in 1998 announcing the introduction of the "Left-Handed Whopper," specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new burger included the same ingredients as the original, but the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. The chain said it received thousands of requests for the new burger, as well as orders for the original "right-handed" version.
9. Discover Magazine announced in 1995 that a highly respected biologist, Aprile Pazzo (Italian for April Fool), had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. The creatures were described as having bony plates on their heads that became burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speed -- a technique they used to hunt penguins.
10. (My favorite) Noted British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on the radio in 1976 that at 9:47 am, a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event, in which Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, would cause a gravitational alignment that would reduce the Earth's gravity. Moore told listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment of the planetary alignment, they would experience a floating sensation. Hundreds of people called in to report feeling the sensation.
11.
South Park: April 1st was advertised as being the premiere of the show's second season—and also the resolution of a cliffhanger where
Eric Cartman was about to discover the identity of his father. Fans spent weeks speculating on the father's identity, but when they tuned in to watch it they were instead treated to
Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus, a half-hour of Terrance and Phillip fart jokes. The true resolution to the cliffhanger aired several weeks later. The show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone claim during the DVD introduction to this episode that they received death threats over pulling the prank, although there were not any police reports to prove this.
12.
Metric time: Repeated several times in various countries, this hoax involves claiming that the time system will be changed to one in which units of time are based on powers of 10.
13.
Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the
BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of
odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial's success. This hoax was also conducted by the
Seven Network in
Australia in 2005.
14.
Tower of Pisa: The
Dutch television news reported once in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen. Many shocked people contacted the station.
15. Wrapping Televisions in Foil: In another year, the Dutch television news reported that the government had new technology to detect unlicensed televisions (in many European countries,
television license fees fund public broadcasting), but that wrapping a television in
aluminium foil could prevent its detection.
16. (My second favorite)
Breast Exams by Satellite: In the 1990s,
Portuguese national television network
RTP announced the Ministry of Health would perform free breast exams by satellite, causing thousands of women to go out topless.
17.
Free wine for all:The Norwegian newspaper "Bergens Tidende" announced in 1987 that the state's alcohol monopoly had 10,000 litres of illegally smuggled wine that had been confiscated. The inhabitants of Bergen were invited to the main store in town to receive their share of the goods, rather than to spill good wine down the drain. That morning staff were met by about 200 men & women with bottles, buckets, and other suitable vessels for carrying the prized goods. Legislation in Norway causes alcohol to be relatively expensive and have limited availability
18.
Water on Mars: In 2005 a news story was posted on the official
NASA website purporting to have pictures of water on
Mars. The picture actually was just a picture of a glass of water on a Mars Candy Bar. hehehehehehe
19.
Death of a mayor: In 1998, local
WAAF shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that
Boston mayor
Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending truth to the prank as he could not be reached. The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. The pair were fired shortly thereafter, after which they became famous when their show became syndicated.
20.
Free concert: Radio station 98.1 KISS in
Chattanooga, Tennessee falsely announced in 2003 that rapper
Eminem would be doing a free show in a discount store parking lot. Several police were needed to deal with traffic gridlock and enraged listeners who threatened to harm the DJs responsible. Both DJs were later jailed for creating a
public nuisance. Also, radio station WAAF 107.3 in
Boston announced that
Pearl Jam was having a free concert in a fictional city in
New Hampshire. A gas station in New Hampshire reported that several streams of car drivers stopped in asking for directions to the fictional town.
21.
New format: in 1998, radio station
KITS in San Francisco played gay-themed songs and changed its call letters to "KGAY" for an hour.
22.
New format: in 2006, radio station KOSY in
Salt Lake City, Utah, switched to a new format of year-round
Christmas music.
23.
New format: On March 29th, 2006 95.5
WBRU, an
alternative rock station in
Providence, RI announced that they were being bought out, and would cease operations by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 31st. Soon after WBRU went off the air,
Buddy FM, a parody of the
Jack FM radio format, began broadcasting random pop and techno music along with occasional pre-recorded station bumps until a mock takeover was staged by WBRU
DJs at 12:16 p.m. on April 1st. The prank continued in some form until roughly 4:09:37 p.m., April 1st.
24.
Shuttle landing: In 1993, a San Diego radio station fooled many listeners into believing that the space shuttle had been diverted from
Edwards Air Force Base and was about to make an emergency landing at a small local airport.
25.
Change of drinking age: On the
Gold Coast, Australia's biggest tourist destination (particularly amongst
schoolies), radio station
Sea FM announced the drinking age would be changed from 18 to 21. This left a huge number of under-21s angry and frustrated, and incited protests. It was later announced at the Sea FM dance party that it was a hoax.
26.
Second Audio Program (SAP): In 2005,
Micky Dolenz told listeners WCBS-FM was broadcasting in foreign languages, and they could make use of the SAP Language control. Callers to the radio station were told that if you didn't have an SAP button, then twist the antenna a bit.
27.
Theft of a Locomotive: In 2006, a Cheyenne radio station reported to listeners that during the previous night, a Union Pacific
4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" steam locomotive was stolen from Holliday Park. Although the locomotive weighed more than 1.2 million lbs and had no tracks connecting it to any nearby railroad, thus making its theft near-impossible, several listeners fell for the joke and went to investigate. The road that overlooks the park was jammed for hours as people realized that it was a hoax, and the locomotive was still on display in the park.
28.
"The Great Iceberg" On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbor towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman (owner of Dick Smith's Foods), had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.
29. In April 2006, the "
Best Damn Sports Show Period" staged a fight between
Tom Arnold and
Michael Strahan. On Friday March 31st the show went off the air as Tom Arnold was wrestling NY Giant's defensive end Michael Strahan to the ground over comments Tom made in a tell-all book. Strahan pretended to be very hurt by screaming and clutching his shoulder as the cameras cut to black. It fooled cast members
Rodney Peete and
Rob Dibble enough to have them interject in the fight.
Rodney Peete went so far as to give Tom
rabbit punches while he broke up what he thought was a real fight. It also worked enough to fool the popular internet site "deadspin.com" into reporting it as a real event.
30. In 2005, TV 3 Estonia broadcasted a news story, where station claimed that thanks to a new technology, they know exactly how much are they being viewed at the moment. They also asked viewers to put a coin against TV screen if they liked the running broadcast. hehehehehe
31. 1997, Cartoon Network ran the 1944 Screwy Squirrel cartoon
Happy-Go-Nutty repeatedly from 6 AM to 6 PM, suggesting that the cartoon character had taken over the network.
32. In 1989,
Seattle area
TV program
Almost Live! set up a
phony broadcast room and dressed up actors as TV anchors to pull an April Fools' joke explaining that the
Space Needle had collapsed in a
windstorm.
33. In 2005, the Maryville Daily Forum newspaper in Maryville, Mo., published an entirely fake front page on April 1. Stories detailed a plan to drain a local lake to find the city manager's lucky golf ball; the city's efforts to annex the entire town from Missouri into Iowa; and the arrest of the newspaper's publisher for smoking a cigar in a restaurant (only a few months after a city-wide no-smoking ban was put into effect). Page 2 of that day's newspaper proclaimed "APRIL FOOLS!" across the top of the page, followed by that day's real news stories. The newspaper received hundreds of phone calls that day from readers who thought the stories were real, and Maryville City Hall also received dozens of phone calls from citizens outraged that the city would drain a lake or annex into Iowa.
34. In 2005, a BBC News lookalike website ran a story outlining a recent Zombie outbreak in Cambodia.
35. As part of an April Fools' joke on April 1, 1997,
Alex Trebek and
Pat Sajak switched hosting duties. Pat hosted
Jeopardy! that day and Alex hosted
Wheel of Fortune where Sajak and
Vanna White played as contestants. Jeopardy! announcer
Johnny Gilbert did double duties that day.
36.
On Paris radio one time, they announced that all of Europe would drive on the left from April 1. This caused absolute pandemonium because those who heard the broadcast drove on the left and those who didn't stayed on the right.
37. Albert Einstein's chauffeur once convinced him to let him give one of his lectures on the theory of relativity. He gave it word perfectly, but was almost caught out afterwards when one of the professors asked him a very complicated mathematical problem. Thinking quickly, the chauffeur said, 'The answer to your question is quite simple. In fact it is so easy I'm going to ask my chauffeur to come and answer it for you.'
38. and finally....
King Philipp the Gracious and His Jester
King Philipp the Gracious, in the year 1466, made a bet with his court jester: the jester would earn a bag full of gold if he managed to fool the King on 1 April. Otherwise he would lose his head.
Philipp, clever as he was, met with his jester the day before 1 April and got him drunk. When the jester came back to his senses, he found himself sentenced to death, already on the scaffold, with the executioner's sword already raised.
What the jester didn't know was that the whole thing was an April Fool's trick played on him, the sword wasn't a sharp one and there was a hog's bladder attached to his neck, filled with blood. The sword was swung, blood poured all over the place. However, the jester didn't move an inch. King Philipp, surprised and distraught, and convinced that his ruse had horribly back-fired and that Jester was actually maimed, went to over to recover the jester's remains, whereupon the jester suddenly lifted up his head and requested his bag of gold!
Today in History:
1871 - The Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.
1882 - The Knights of Columbus are established.
1936 - In Germany, dictator Hitler receives 99% of the votes in a referendum to ratify Germany's illegal reoccupation of the Rhineland, receiving 44.5 million votes out of 45.5 million registered voters. In 1933 all political parties and political liberty had been abolished.
1945 - World War II: Last day of V-1 flying bomb attacks on England.
1951 - Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.
1971 - A Los Angeles, California jury recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers.
1984 - In the middle of the night, the Baltimore Colts NFL team pack their belongings and move all operations to Indianapolis, Indiana
Happy Birthday:
1918 - Sam Walton, American businessman (d. 1992)
1957 - Christopher Lambert, French actor
1967 - John Popper, American musician (Blues Traveler)
Deaths on this day:
<>2005 - Johnnie Cochran, American lawyer (b. 1937)
