April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

Over the years numerous statues of the Virgin Mary have been known to miraculously start weeping, but on 1 April 1995, an Italian statue of Lenin in the town of Cavriago joined the club. A huge crowd gathered to witness the milky white tears rolling down the statue's metal cheeks. The crowd remained for hours until the tears were eventually revealed to be a prank.

The citizens of Venice woke on the morning of April Fool's Day to find piles of horse manure deposited throughout the Piazza San Marco, as if a procession of horses had gone through there. This was extremely unusual, since the Piazza is surrounded by canals and not easily accessible to horses. The manure turned out to be the work of the infamous British prankster Horace de Vere Cole, who was honeymooning in Venice. He had transported a load of manure over from the mainland the night before with the help of a gondolier and had then placed it throughout the Piazza. Perhaps he should have been paying more attention to his wife while on honeymoon because, evidently tired by his constant hijinks, she divorced him within a few years.