April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

The Daily Mail revealed the discovery of a tunnel linking England and France that had been constructed during the Napoleonic wars. Supposedly the tunnel was wide enough to allow an ass carrying two barrels of brandy to pass through it. The tunnel had supposedly been discovered beneath Dover Castle. The article explained, "It would have been used to rescue aristocrats from Napoleonic France, to transfer spies and to trade British goods with Europe."

Pranksters supplied the UK's Cerne Abbas Giant with a condom in the form of a 32-foot plastic sheet. The famous gigantic figure is an ancient chalk-carving of a naked man carrying a club, located in the British countryside in Dorset . The figure is supposed to be a fertility god and is said to possess the power to make childless women pregnant. A landlady at a local hotel commented, "It was quite a shock, but now everyone is laughing about it. We have no idea who did it, but he is now well secured against Aids."

BMW announced a new technological innovation that would be incorporated into future versions of its cars—the badgewash system. No longer would BMW drivers have to endure dirt on their enamel bonnet badge. The advertisement claimed that, "A tiny sensor mounted in the wiper arm measures the light reflected back from the white sections of the BMW badge… Even if a film of dirt cuts out as little as 5% of that light, the sensor will detect it and start the wiper."

Izvestia, a Soviet newspaper, reported that the Moscow Spartak soccer team was in negotiations with the Argentine star Diego Maradona to offer him $6 million to play for them. Supposedly he would join the team within a year. Izvestia later admitted that the story was false, and that it was, in fact, the first time they had ever published an April fool's day hoax.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Margaret Thatcher was considering privatizing the Army and selling off the Brigade of Guards. According to the article, "Strict flotation terms would prevent hostile foreign interests gaining majority control over the brigade."