Results: The Washing Of The Lions, And Other April Fools' Jokes

The earliest April Fools' Day hoax on record was in 1698, according to Boese. People in London were told to go see the annual ceremony of the washing of the lions at the Tower of London. They showed up at the Tower of London, but, much to their dismay, there was no annual lion-washing ceremony. The street prank worked so well that people kept pulling it year after year, targeting mostly out-of-towners. By the mid-19th century, pranksters had printed up fake tickets, and hundreds or thousands of people would show up, only to realize they'd been tricked. Have you ever pulled an April Fools' joke on anyone?

On April 1, 1957, the British Broadcasting Corporation told viewers that there had been an "exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop" in Switzerland that year, due in part to "the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil." The BBC showed footage of spaghetti harvesters diligently picking noodles from trees. Some viewers were upset—but some called to ask where they could find a spaghetti bush. Come on, honestly, would you enjoy having a real spaghetti bush in your backyard?

"I never did anything wrong, and I won't do it again," said former President Richard Nixon, announcing that he would run for president in 1992. But the man speaking wasn't Nixon, and the news segment that aired the announcement wasn't real. National Public Radio's piece on Nixon's 1992 presidential run is one of its most famous April Fools' Day pranks. Not only did people believe it, they were outraged. "A lot of people's worst dream was Nixon running again, and the idea that he would run again was absurd, but it played on their fears so much that thousands of people believed it. Would you consider Nixon one of the worst Presidents ever?

In 1996, Taco Bell ran a newspaper ad announcing that it had purchased the Liberty Bell. The ad was risky because it annoyed a lot of people, but it proved to other companies that it's worth taking a risk if you pull off a stunt that everybody talks about. The ad represented a shift in the way that companies looked at April Fools' Day. Before that, it was just fun, but starting with the Taco Liberty Bell, and continuing into today, companies began to see it as a way to promote their brand and make money. Have you seen any April Fools' targeted advertising in the last few years (that you either fell for or not)?

In 2014, Google joined the ranks of corporations playing tricks on the public. On April 1, it published a Pokémon game in which players could use Google maps to look for and catch Pikachus and Bulbasaurs, who would pop up on the map screen for gamers to grab. The prize for the biggest collection? A job a Google as "Pokémon Master." It fooled thousands, but, oddly enough, was also inspirational. Software engineers at Niantic Labs took the prank and turned it into the phenomenon: Pokémon Go. Did you or are you caught up in the Pokémon Go fad?

Just in case you've been wondering about where it is located, The Museum of Hoaxes is, just that, A HOAX. Boese has written about hoaxes on his website since 1997. According to the site, the Museum of Hoaxes is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in San Diego. People frequently email him to ask how they can find his museum. Because he's an honest man, he tells the truth: It's a hoax. "It all started because I was calling the [website] the 'Museum of Hoaxes,' and at some point one of my readers emailed me some pictures he'd created with photoshop," says Boese. He decided to post these fake museum photos on his site, explaining that "it seemed appropriate since the whole subject is hoaxes." Did you wonder if that was indeed a real place?