April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" program reported that former-President Richard Nixon had declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Accompanying the announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech and declaring "I never did anything wrong, and I won't do it again." Harvard professor Laurence Tribe and Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman then came on the air to offer their analysis of Nixon's decision and its possible impact on the 1992 presidential race. A clip from Torrie Clarke, press secretary of the Bush-Quayle campaign, was also played in which she said, "We are stunned and think it's an obvious attempt by Nixon to upstage our foreign policy announcement today." Listeners reacted very emotionally to the announcement, flooding NPR with calls expressing shock and outrage. During the second half of the program host John Hockenberry revealed that the announcement had been an April Fool's Day joke and explained that Nixon's voice had been impersonated by comedian Rich Little.

The London Times reported that formal negotiations were underway for the purpose of dividing Belgium in half. The Dutch-speaking north would join the Netherlands and the French-speaking south would join France. An editorial in the paper lamented, "The fun will go from that favorite parlor game: Name five famous Belgians." The report apparently fooled the British foreign office minister Tristan Garel-Jones who almost went on a TV interview prepared to discuss this "important" story. The Belgian embassy also received numerous calls from journalists and expatriate Belgians seeking to confirm the news. A rival paper later criticized the prank, declaring, "The Times's effort could only be defined as funny if you find the very notion of Belgium hilarious."

The Hollywood Park racetrack in Los Angeles placed an 85-foot banner on the ground that spelled out, in 20-foot-high letters, "Welcome to Chicago." This is what airline passengers saw as they descended into Los Angeles Airport.

L'Humanite, the French Communist Party newspaper, reported that the European Commission had decided to allow German drivers to drive as fast as they wanted through other EC countries, because Germans had no speed limit on their own motorways.

Alison St. John, a radio reporter for KPBS, the San Diego affiliate of NPR, warned that San Diego would be pelted by hail "the size of duck eggs." Terry Boyd of Metro Traffic followed up this announcement by warning that all drivers "must wear a helmet."

The Independent Diary reported that a popular men's fashion store in London was having great success selling skirts for men. After this report appeared, the store was apparently "flooded with calls" from people trying to order them.

Rush Limbaugh, a radio talk-show host famous for his support of conservative issues, declared his belief that the U.S. government should raise taxes for the poor because "they're the wealthiest poor in the world." Many of his listeners called in to applaud his belief. Later Limbaugh confessed that he does not actually support such a belief and chastised his listeners for being "too quick to believe anything that hits a hot button."

WXRT-FM, a Chicago radio station, announced that it would turn into a digital, commercial-free "pay-per-hear" station. Its signal would be scrambled and divided into five different program formats that listeners would have to pay to listen to. The five formats would be "'XRT Basic," "'XRT Live," "'XRT Gold," "'XRT Espanol" and "sports-rock." The station announced the format change all day and then switched to a scrambled signal for several minutes. Hundreds of listeners reportedly called in to protest the change, and one listener even showed up with a picket sign outside the station.

BMW unveiled a revolutionary new technology that enabled the removal of tire tracks from the ground. It was explained that the technology had been developed by East German military authorities, but could now be used by surreptitious lovers seeking to conceal their tracks from suspicious partners. The spoof announcement was created for BMW by ad agency WCRS.

The famous naturalist David Bellamy announced the discovery of gigantic footprints on the shore of Loch Ness, and declared that it had now been proven that the famous monster was a dinosaur. The announcement appeared on numerous children's TV shows and on the front page of the Daily Record. It turned out that the announcement was a public relations campaign orchestrated by Handel Communications to promote a new chocolate biscuit called Dinosaurs.

The Moskovskaya Pravda, a Russian newspaper, declared in a March 32nd edition (titled Moskovskaya Nye-Pravda, or Moscow Un-Truth) that plans had been finalized to build a second subway system in Moscow. The second system was being built "in the interests of competition."