April Fools' Day

April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by hoaxes and jokes. There are many theories concerning its origin but the most prevailing one is that April 1 was counted the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed that to January 1, some people stayed with April 1. Those who did were called "April Fools" and were taunted by their neighbours.

Among the Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time
(as judged by notoriety, creativity, and number of people duped) are the following:

#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

1957: The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter, Swiss farmers were enjoying a spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with a video of Swiss peasants pulling spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "Place some spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".

#8: The Left-Handed Whopper

1998: Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to ask for the new sandwich. Also, according to the press release, "many others asked for their own 'right handed' version.

#11: UFO Lands in London

1989: On March 31, 1989 thousands of drivers outside London looked up in the air to see a flying saucer descending on their city. Many of them stopped to watch the strange craft in the air. The saucer finally landed in a field where local people immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. Soon the police arrived on the scene, and one brave officer approached the craft. When a door opened, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction. The saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin Records. The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks. His plan was to land the craft in London's Hyde Park on April 1.

#12: Flying Penguins

2008: The BBC announced that camera crews filming near the Antarctic for its natural history series Miracles of Evolution had filmed penguins flying in the air. It even offered a video clip of these flying penguins, which became one of the most viewed videos on the internet. Presenter Terry Jones explained that these penguins took to the air and flew thousands of miles to the rainforests of South America. A follow-up video explained how the BBC created the special effects of the flying penguins.