Origin Of April Fool's Day

The most popular theory about the origin of April Fool’s Day involves the French calendar reform of the sixteenth century.




The theory goes like this: In 1564 France reformed its calendar, moving the start of the year from the end of March to January 1. Those who failed to keep up with the change, who stubbornly clung to the old calendar system and continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March 25th and April 1st, had jokes played on them. Pranksters would surreptitiously stick paper fish to their backs. The victims of this prank were thus called Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish—which, to this day, remains the French term for April Fools—and so the tradition was born.



The calendar-change hypothesis seems, on the surface, like a logical explanation for the origin of April Fools. However, the hypothesis becomes less plausible if we examine the history of calendar reform in more detail.



The Julian Calendar

The Julian Calendar, established by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, made January 1 the first day of the year. But as Christianity spread throughout Europe, efforts were made to christianize the calendar by moving New Year’s Day to dates of greater theological significance, such as Christmas or Easter. Some countries continued to use January 1, justifying this as the date of Christ’s circumcision. As a consequence, by the 1500s the European calendar system was a mess. Not only had errors in the Julian calendar caused the solar year to diverge from the calendar year, but also countries were beginning the year on different dates.



Most regions in France had been using Easter as the start of the year since at least the fourteenth century. This caused particular confusion since the date of Easter was tied to the lunar cycle and changed from one year to the next. Sometimes the same date would occur twice in a year.



However, the French used Easter as the start of the year primarily for legal and administrative purposes. January 1, following the Roman custom, was widely regarded as the traditional start of the year, and it was the day when people exchanged gifts.



Sixteenth-Century Reform

The practice of starting the year on Easter Day caused enormous practical inconvenience, so around 1500 many people in France began to use January 1 as the start of the calendar year. For instance, in early sixteenth-century French books, it is common to see both forms of dating listed side-by-side (for titles published in January, February, or March). By the mid-sixteenth century, a calendar system beginning on January 1 was in wide use in France.



In 1563 King Charles IX decreed January 1 to be the first day of the year, thus aligning legal convention with what had become the popular practice. His edict was passed into law by the French Parliament on Dec. 22, 1564.



Eighteen years later, in 1582, Pope Gregory issued a papal bull decreeing sweeping calendar reform. The Gregorian reform included moving the start of the year to January 1, as well as creating a leap-year system and eliminating ten days from the month of October 1582 in order to correct the drift of the calendar. The Pope had no formal power to make governments accept this reform, but he urged Christian nations to do so. France immediately accepted the reform, although it had already changed the start of the year in 1564. (Many histories of April Fool’s Day mistakenly suggest that France only moved the start of the year in 1582 when it accepted the Gregorian calendar reform in its entirety.)



With this history in mind, it becomes clear that the calendar-change hypothesis is a problematic explanation for the origin of April Fool’s Day. The switch to January 1 did not occur suddenly in France. It was a gradual process, spanning an entire century. And even before the switch, the French New Year had no obvious connection to April 1st.



British Calendar Change

The calendar-change hypothesis is more plausible if applied to Britain, because it was the British, not the French, who observed New Year’s Day on March 25 (the date of the christian Feast of Annunciation), followed by a week of festivities culminating on April 1. In fact, the earliest version of the calendar-change hypothesis to be found in print, dating from 1766, does place the argument in a British context. A correspondent to the Gentleman’s Magazine in April 1766 wrote:



“The strange custom prevalent throughout this kingdom, of people making fools of one another upon the first of April, arose from the year formerly beginning, as to some purpose, and in some respects, on the twenty-fifth of March, which was supposed to be the incarnation of our Lord; it being customary with the Romans, as well as with us, to hold a festival, attended by an octave, at the commencement of the new year—which festival lasted for eight days, whereof the first and last were the principal; therefore the first of April is the octave of the twenty-fifth of March, and, consequently, the close or ending of the feast, which was both the festival of the Annunciation and the beginning of the new year.”



Britain only changed the start of its calendar year to January 1 in 1752. By this time April Fool’s Day was already a well-established tradition. So confusion about the calendar change could not have been responsible for the origin of the custom in Britain. But it is possible, as the correspondent to Gentleman’s Magazine speculated, that the festival held on April 1 (the “octave” of the March 25th calendar year change) evolved into April Fool’s Day. However, this is pure speculation, undermined by the lack of any other compelling evidence that the custom originated in Britain. The earliest unambiguous references to April Fool’s Day actually come from continental Europe, suggesting it is there that April Fool’s Day began.

The Truth About Breakups

The breakup, like most, seemed so abrupt. My caller needed a reason its demise. At that moment, I heard her angels say, “He seems to be running away, but he’s trying to find his own path!” I relayed the message, helping her understand her ex needed time for himself to forge his own path. Feeling confined, he sought freedom. But she had a difficult time trying to grasp his reasons, and couldn’t see his point of view. Her heart hurt from their split. Her angels wouldn’t relent, either.




They kept repeating, “Tell her to keep moving forward, but to have faith that this is a blessed change for them.” I passed this on, telling her that great blessings will come — as long as she sets him free for now. “But,” I said, “The Angels don’t want you to stop living your life, they want you to move through this difficult period with as much faith as you can muster.” My caller’s pain was so deep and her heartbreak so strong that she could not process the message.



“But when will he come back?”



“It’s going to take him some time because he feels the need to be on his own right at this moment,” I replied. It’s not that he doesn’t care about her, he simply needs the room to be able to move about freely while he discovers himself.



Sometimes We have to relay messages that are not easy for people to hear. But in the end, it’s the truth that will set them free. It helps them focus on their path and purpose. once in a while, we all need a reminder or nudge that we can’t control another person. No matter how much it hurts to see them walk away, it’s our life lesson. At times like these, we need to recalibrate — and shift our focus. To keep moving forward.



Angels are always here to remind us that there is a hidden blessing just around the corner. Even though we cannot see it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. The most prominent message the Angels give us all: “Keep moving forward, do not become stagnant.”



This is the truth, which is why it can be difficult to hear and process. It propels us to move when we feel stuck in our lives. So, get moving because you never know what hidden blessings may be around the next corner!

The Myth of Love at First Sight

I believe in attraction at first sight. I believe in like, and in lust, at first sight. But do I believe in love at first sight?

Nope. Here’s why.

Like life, there’s really no accurate definition of love. It’s a level of feeling you have towards another person, but only you are going to identify it by measuring your emotions. If humans were more like dashboards, we might have a meter on hearts that blink red when we’re in love, but alas, we do not. We are responsible for our own definitions of love.

But we can get close to a universal definition by agreeing on a few things about love. One is that it is supremely sacred and important to us –- a connection that most of us will use to determine the majority of our lives by pairing us with a significant other.

If love is so important to us, we need to elevate our definitions of it above the spontaneous feelings of attraction, familiarity, and desire that sometimes combine when you first look a new person in the eyes and you skip a breath.

The human body has all sorts of great tricks to ensure that our species doesn’t stop reproducing, and one of them is this very phenomena –- being emotionally attracted to a new person when something in their demeanor responds to what you long for. Is it fair to call this love? No. In fact, it only cheapens our meaning of it.

Real love needs to be proven to you by the other person, and most importantly, by yourself. Real love needs to come from knowing another person, their knowing you, and in finding that your feelings for them increase and maintain when you have the full picture –- not just that first impression.

So while I enjoy the head rush that accompanies a first meeting with someone that I’d rather be waking up next to than be sleeping with, I refuse to mistake it for love. That sort of myth-making is comforting, but it also allows you to enter a relationship under false pretenses, obscuring your chances of knowing if you have real love, or just love at first sight.