April Fools' Day

A holiday celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is celebrated by the execution of hoaxes and practical jokesof varying sophistication with the goal of publically embarrassing the gullible.

History?

Some media organisations have either unwittingly or deliberately propagated many hoaxes, and the worldwide spread of the Internet has also assisted the prankster in their work.

Some particularly well-known April Fool's Day hoaxes include:

• Kremvax: one of the early Internet April Fool's day hoaxes.
• Smell-o-vision: The BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odour over the airwaves to all viewers. Despite the fact that no such capability, many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial's success.
• Metric time: Repeated several times in various countries over the year, this hoax claims that the time system will be changed to some system where one subdivision is some power of 10 smaller than the next.