The Copenhagen newspaper
Politiken reported that a new law had been proposed in the Danish parliament that would require all black dogs to be painted white. The purpose of this was supposedly to increase road safety by allowing the dogs to be seen more easily at night. However, opposition parties were said to have loudly condemned the proposal as "another step towards socialism and conformism," and expressed the suspicion that the law had only been put forward because of pressure from the painters' union.
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On March 11, 1980, the National Bank of Denmark issued a 20 kroner banknote that featured a picture of two house sparrows. Curiously, one of the sparrows appeared to be one-legged. This inspired the
Roskilde Tidende newspaper to run a story that year announcing that all bills with one-legged birds were fake, but that they could be exchanged at the post office for genuine bills depicting two-legged birds.
Lines at post offices soon became so long, with people eager to exchange their fake bills, that post office employees had to put notices on the doors explaining that no currency exchange was taking place.
The hoax was the brainchild of artist/cartoonist Jan Robert Thoresen. He was subsequently questioned by the police, but let go without any charges being filed since there was no law against improving the country's currency. Nor was it plausible that any government would ever allow people to swap counterfeit banknotes for genuine ones.
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Danish Prime Minister Poul Schluter held a press conference at which he issued a demand that the British government make its motorists drive on the right side of the road, instead of the left. He said, "We see this as a very serious case and intend to raise the issue in the (European Economic) Community… It is one of our priorities." Schluter, known as an enthusiastic cyclist, noted that he was afraid to ride his bicycle in Britain. As he was leaving the press conference he turned and added, "April Fools."
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Residents of Copenhagen who visited the square in front of the town hall were greeted by a strange sight. One of the subway cars from the city's new subway, which was under construction, appeared to have burst up through the pavement. The subway car actually was a retired vehicle from the Stockholm subway. It had been cut at an angle and loose bricks were placed around it, to give the illusion that it had crashed up from below.
The stunt was sponsored by Gevalia Coffee, whose advertisements had an ongoing theme of vehicles popping up in strange locations, with the tagline "Be ready for unexpected guests."
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