The April Fool's Day Archive
A catalog of April Fool's Day hoaxes, pranks, and related events throughout history, categorized by year and theme.

Years Archived:
2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995 | 1994 | 1993 | 1992 | 1991 | 1990 | 1989 | 1988 | 1987 | 1986 | 1985 | 1984 | 1983 | 1982 | 1981 | 1980 | 1979 | 1978 | 1977 | 1976 | 1975 | 1974 | 1973 | 1972 | 1971 | 1970 | 1969 | 1965 | 1962 | 1960 | 1959 | 1957 | 1950 | 1949 | 1940 | 1938 | 1937 | 1936 | 1934 | 1933 | 1925 | 1923 | 1920 | 1919 | 1915 | 1901 | 1900 | 1899-1800 | 1799-1700 | Before 1700 | Undated

The German software company Application Systems Heidelberg debuted the iShave attachment for the iPod: "Now with your iPod you can not only hear good music everywhere, you can also get a smooth shave to look good."

Germany's Tageszeitung claimed that the US had decided to move its Berlin embassy. The problem with the current location of the embassy was two-fold. First it stood directly opposite the French embassy, which was awkward because of French resistance to Washington's war in Iraq. Second, the embassy was located on Pariser Platz (meaning Parisian Square). The newspaper noted that Washington might reconsider the move, "but only if the name of the square is changed."

The German Der Tagesspiegel reported that the City of Berlin planned to raise money by auctioning the naming rights of the city's railway stations to the highest bidders. The city hoped it could raise as much as DM5m per station in this way. There was also discussion of charging the descendants of the 19th century composer Richard Wagner retrospectively for the existing station at Richard Wagner Platz.

Westdeutsche Rundfunk, a radio station in Cologne, Germany, announced that city officals had ruled that joggers could only run at a maximum speed of six miles per hour through the city's parks. Any faster, it was said, and they would inconvenience the squirrels who were in the middle of their mating season.

Several German newspapers reported sightings of UFOs on April 1st. The Cologne Neue Illustrierte published a picture of "a tiny, aluminum-covered man" who had supposedly been rescued from a saucer that had crash landed. The report stated that the saucer had been shot down by American anti-aircraft guns. A newspaper in Frankfurt quoted the "American Aeronautical Institute" to report that flying saucers had been found aground in the United States. [The Charleston Daily Mail, Apr 6, 1950.]

In April 1934, numerous U.S. newspapers printed a photograph distributed by the International News Photo agency showing a man flying through the air by means of his own lung power. The man was identified as German pilot Erich Kocher. Captions accompanying the photo explained that Kocher was wearing a device strapped to his chest which consisted of a box and two horizontal rotors. By blowing into the box, he could make the rotors revolve. This created enough suction in front of him to propel him through the air. He also wore skis on his feet as landing gear, and a fin on his back to steer himself.



Among the papers that printed this photo as an authentic piece of news were the New York Daily News (which, at that time, had the largest circulation in the U.S.), the New York American, the Daily Mirror, and the Chicago Herald & Examiner,

Even the prestigious New York Times ran the photo on April 15, 1934 in its Rotogravure Picture Section, placing the following caption beneath it:



Some papers also ran a second smaller photo as an insert, showing Kocher operating the "lung-power motor."


What the American papers didn't realize was that the original source of the photo was the April Fool's Day edition of a German magazine, the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. International News Photo had distributed the photo to its American subscribers without identifying the photo as a joke.

International News Photo also confused details of the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung's original article. In the original, it wasn't the force of Kocher's breath that caused the rotors to turn. Instead, the pilot breathed normally into the box, triggering a chemical reaction that extracted the carbon dioxide from his breath and used it to power a small motor. The fact that carbon dioxide is not very combustible and thus would make a terrible fuel was part of the joke. International News Photo also misspelled the pilot's name. In the original it was Erich Koycher, which was a pun on the German word "keuchen" meaning to wheeze or gasp for breath.

The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported that a Russian scientist, Professor Figua Posakoff, had discovered a method of "harnessing the latent energy of the atmosphere," the energy displayed in thunderstorms and other atmospheric catastrophes. Harnessing this energy would allow the Soviets to hurl objects "of any weight almost unlimited distances."


The Soviets were said to have promised to use this discovery only for peaceful purposes. However the Allgemeine Zeitung noted that it would certainly give the nation a powerful advantage in warfare.

Hundreds of people, mostly shop girls and women, gathered in front of the Brandenburg gate in Berlin, drawn there by an announcement placed in Berlin papers the night before stating that a motion picture camera was going to take a picture in front of the gate at noon, and that everybody who was in front of the gate would be in the picture. The announcement was a prank perpetrated by a night worker at the papers. The Chicago Tribune foreign news service reported: "Some people stood there for hours before they realized that this was the first day of April, known in Germany as in the United States as April Fools' day." [Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr 5, 1919.]

The German Gardener's News, edited by Herr Möller, issued an April Fool's Day edition that revealed various botanical discoveries. For instance, it was noted that scientific investigation had discovered some varieties of flowers that were so phosphorescent they gave sufficient light to read by. "Under proper conditions the flowers of the clematis glow like stars, while sunflowers, if correctly nurtured, make it quite possible to read a newspaper by their unaided light." An accompanying photograph showed Herr Möller reading by the light of sunflower lamps in his garden at 10 o'clock at night.

Also discussed in the same edition was the new fad of growing fruit trees in the likeness of Emperor William, and the accidental discovery of a hybrid of bottle gourds and grape vine that produced gourds full of delicious Rhine wine. [Chicago Tribune, Apr 13, 1901.]

According to German legend, a meeting of lawmakers was supposed to occur in Augsburg on April 1, 1530 in order to consider various financial matters. Because of time considerations, the meeting did not take place. But numerous speculators, who had bet on the meeting occurring, lost their money and were ridiculed. German folklore has it that this was the origin of the custom of playing pranks on April 1.