On a recent visit to Sitka, Alaska, I had a chance to pay my respects at the grave of Porky Bickar, the prankster responsible for one of the greatest April Fool's Day hoaxes of all time. more…
Poe is known to have authored six hoaxes. But for over one hundred years a story has circulated claiming that, as a young man in Baltimore, he pulled off a seventh, lesser-known hoax, involving a flight from the 234-foot tall Phoenix Shot Tower. more…
Was poodle clipping included as an official competition in the 1900 Summer Olympics? more…
In 1965, a Copenhagen newspaper ran an April Fool hoax claiming that the Danish parliament was going to require all black dogs to be painted white, in order to increase road safety by making the dogs more visible at night. Fast forward to 2015. The Dartmoor Livestock Protection Society has launched a scheme to paint ponies with reflective blue stripes in order to allow motorists to see them more easily at night. Goes to show that, given enough time, all April Fool hoaxes eventually come true.
A 1931 photo in the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung showing the US Navy airship "Los Angeles," blown by a gust of wind, lifting a ship into the air, was just an April Fool's Day hoax. But it was inspired by a very similar real incident. more…
Does this photo show a killer whale attacking a bear? No, it's just an April Fool photo hoax that's apparently still fooling some people.
Standard Digital News offers a round-up of April Fool's Day hoaxes that's a bit different. The 10 best ever from Kenya. I hadn't heard of any of them before. more…
For many years, I've had Burger King's left-handed whopper hoax from 1998 listed as one of the most popular April Fool hoaxes of all time. But in all that time, I had never seen a copy of the actual ad that Burger King ran in USA Today. I tried contacting Burger King repeatedly asking for a copy, and they ignored me. And no libraries had back issues of USA Today that included the ads. But finally, I managed to track down a copy at the Library of Congress. So here it is. The original left-handed whopper ad.
In 1928, the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung published an article about a Bride Import company that was supplying wives to the men of Liechtenstein. Women were being shipped into the country in freight cars, the magazine claimed, and were sold at marriage markets. The article provoked outrage in Liechtenstein, particularly because all the brides shown being imported seemed to be extremely overweight. more…
Back in 1921, a widely reprinted story claimed that German farmers had developed a method of obtaining lard from live pigs by operating on the pigs to remove the rashers, then bandaging the pigs up and letting them heal. Supposedly the operation could be repeated three times a year. The story was actually a German April Fool's Day spoof that was mistaken by the American and British press for real news. more…
