The April Fool Archive

Metric Time    (April Fool's Day - 1975)

Australia's This Day Tonight revealed that the country would soon be converting to "metric time." Under the new system there would be 100 seconds to the minute, 100 minutes to the hour, and 20-hour days. Furthermore, seconds would become millidays, minutes become centidays, and hours become decidays. The report included an interview with Deputy Premier Des Corcoran who (participating in the prank) praised the new time system. The Adelaide townhall was shown sporting a new 10-hour metric clock face. The show received numerous calls from viewers who fell for the hoax. One caller wanted to know how he could convert his newly purchased digital clock to metric time. [Source: Talking TelevisionAU]

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Comments

I live in Adelaide and I remember this joke. We watched the report in stunned disbelief; until my mother noticed the date!
Posted by mcm  on  Fri Jun 12, 2009  at  06:58 PM
I can remember being told by our science teacher about this change to time and how we could go along to the post office and get little stickers that we could place around our watch faces - I still do not know to this day if he had fallen for the joke or if he was trying to fool us.
Posted by Leigh  on  Thu Mar 31, 2011  at  03:31 PM