How Did April Fools Day Come About? - Big Questions (Ep.4)

Hi, I'm Craig. My beard smells like maple syrup, and this is Mental Floss on YouTube

Today I'm going to answer Ruth R.H.'s big question. How did April Fool's Day come about

Well, Ruth, there are many different ancient examples of holidays and festivals similar to April Fool's Day

These probably inspired the holiday that we celebrate today, so I'm not going to tell you about a few of those

April Fool's, I am going to tell you. Also, April Fool's, it's not April Fool's. Let's do this thing

Festivals like April Fool's Day have been around for a long time, so it's hard to say which one influenced our holiday the most

So I'm going to talk about three of its historical ancestors, Hilaria, holy, and the Feast of Fools

I've never eaten fools before, but I will try it. So the Greek festival, Asensis, was later adopted by the ancient Romans who celebrated it on March 25th

during the vernal or spring equinox. They dubbed it Hilaria. It was in honor of the goddess Sibley, who represented the Earth

People played games and threw parties to celebrate the shift from winter to spring. Many believe Hilaria inspired April Fools because people used to dress up in disguise and impersonate others

Plus, it was celebrated a few days before April 1st. There a similar ancient Hindu festival called Holy which is still celebrated all over the world Holy falls on different days each year but it usually occurs in March This is a giant party celebrating the demise of Holika a demoness that Vishnu burned to death The event is commemorated with a large bonfire

Young people who are responsible for the prank aspect of the festival throw colorful water or powder on people

In medieval Europe, there was a feast of fools which took place around New Year's

It involved flipping the church hierarchy so that the lowest members would take on the role of bishop and hold services

We don't know for sure what ensued, but some experts believed that there were pranks and mocking the church leaders

Maybe, maybe a little drinking. Maybe a little twerking. I don't know

Others claimed that this ritual has been misinterpreted and was more orderly than that. Regardless, the feast continued to pop up through the year 1600

So there are a lot of people who think those celebrations influenced our April Fool's Day

And how did we land on the date April 1st? Well, during the Middle Ages, many Europeans celebrated New Year's during the week of March 25th through April 1st

The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, which officially made January 1st the start of the new year

But some continued celebrating it on April 1st. and they were considered April Fools

I consider them April F*** heads. If you have a big question of your own you'd like answered

leave it below in the comments. Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube. See you next week

April Fools, I won't see you. You might see me, though