Much information for this page was found at the online museum, The Museum of Hoaxes
The booklet warned against the encouragement of children playing pranks on April Fools’ Day, explaining that even the simplest prank, no matter how harmless it may be, can lead an innocent child down an evil path of deception. As a sentence in the booklet states regarding April Fool’s Day pranks, “It is from such beginnings that the young too often have their morals corrupted, and their souls destroyed.”
The Weekly Hawk-Eye, a newspaper in Burlington, Iowa, printed a story on Apr 20, 1858 regarding a prank pulled April 1 that year in Chicago.
A notice had been printed in Chicago papers that on April 1 at 1:00pm, a “famous gymnast” would accomplish a daredevil act by climbing St. Paul’s Church, standing up at the top of the steeple and then descending back down to the ground, all in a matter of 20 minutes.
The Weekly Hawk-Eye reported, “At the time appointed, a crowd of over 300 people gathered, including reporters, pencils in hand. But as the hours wore on, the truth gradually stole over the minds of the sightseers that it was ‘All fools day’, and the crowd suddenly discovered it was time to go to dinner, which they did with a rush.”
The popular purse on a string prank was featured on the cover of the March 30, 1861 issue of Harper’s Weekly in anticipation of one of many pranks to be played that coming April 1.
On April 1, 1878, less than a year after inventing the phonograph, a New York newspaper, named The Daily Graphic, ran an article that Thomas Edison had invented a machine which can turn water into wine, soil into cereal and which can create meat with no loss of animal life. Believing at the time there was nothing Edison couldn’t invent, other newspapers across the country caught wind of this story and began printing it in their own publications as fact.
Within the next two days, The Daily Graphic gloatingly reprinted the story with the headline “They Bite”, referring to other newspapers having fallen for the prank hook, line and sinker.
“Several papers have copied in dreadful earnest our first of April joke concerning Edison’s new machine for manufacturing food from inorganic elements. Although the hoax was disclosed in the last paragraph, a good many, with the careless American habit of hasty reading, seemed to have stopped short of that revelation. We received a telegraph dispatch from Washington on Tuesday reading as follows:
Was your article on Edison’s food-invention, April 1, hoax or genuine?”
In 1888, The San Diego Union reported that two hunters had shot and killed a strange creature which was half-human, half-animal in an out of the way location Northwest of San Diego called Deadman’s Hole. The creature was reported to have stood upright, had the body of a bear and the face of a human.
A portion of the article regarding the creature’s death reads as follows:
“Cox, who is a wonderful shot with a rifle, brought his weapon to his shoulder and fired. With a cry like that of a human being the beast instantly fell in a hideous heap across a boulder that it was in the act of scaling.”
It was reported the hunters then discovered the creature’s lair where they found a pile of bones of its human victims. The hunters were said to be bringing the creature’s body into the city for public exhibit.
The next day, the paper reported, “Throughout the day the police station was visited by a number of persons who were anxious to view the body of the strange being that was reported killed. They were told to come in next April Fool’s Day and see it.”
This comic strip, titled “A Fool’s Cap and a Plate of Ice Cream”, appeared in the April 4, 1896 issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
It’s all fun and games until someone dies. On April 3, 1896, The Des Moines Daily News ran a story out of Wichita, Kansas titled “The Joke That Killed Her”. As the quality of the image may be a bit tough to read, I’ve copied the story below, which reads:
“Near Nashville yesterday, John Ahrens, a farmer, planned an April fool joke on his wife with disastrous results. He disguised himself as a tramp, fastened a white mask over his face, and knocked at the door. When she appeared he ordered her to get dinner for him. To his horror his wife fell to the floor in a faint and died an hour later. Ahrens has been married only a few months and idolized his wife. Her death has crazed him with grief and remorse, and he threatens to take his own life.”
The Young Folks ‘Cyclopedia of Games and Sports, published in 1899, contained instructions on how to make an April Fool Whistle. The instructions read as follows:
“An April Fool whistle can be made as shown in the illustration, and filled with flour, which will fly into the face of anyone who tries to blow it. A B (Fig. 1) is a tin tube, stopped by two pieces of cork. One at the end has holes in it and a glass tube through it, as shown in Fig. 2. The other figures explain themselves.”
Another example of an April Fool’s Day prank having a life-threatening effect on someone, as reported on April 3, 1900 in the Fort Wayne Evening Sentinel. The first word in the headline is an error and should read “Serious” rather than “Series”.
This April Fool’s Day poem, written from a child’s perspective, appeared in The Boston Globe on April 1, 1900.
To celebrate April Fool’s Day in 1902, a New York newspaper reported that due to a fault in the dye, pennies minted in 1894 were being recalled by the U.S. Treasury, which would pay a premium of 50 cents for each penny returned. The prank had lasting effects, with people showing up daily at the sub-treasury for months, attempting to turn in their 1894 pennies for the profit advertised.
The Boston Post ran the story below on May 31, 1902.
On April 1, 1905, a newspaper in Germany, named The Berliner Tageblatt, reported that the United States Federal Treasury had been the victim of a massive crime. A group of thieves, funded by American millionaires, had tunneled beneath the Treasury and robbed it from below, getting away with over $268 million, and that the US government was desperately trying to conceal the crime while chasing the criminals around the world.
This story was picked up by other German newspapers and mistakenly printed as fact, some of which included detailed illustrations of the heist, such as the one below. When word reached the United States, the public was up in arms, demanding a congressional investigation into the crime. It is unknown at what point it became clear that the story was a hoax.
On April 1, 1905, the Cincinnati Inquirer ran a story about the moon shifting out of orbit and falling toward Earth, though eventually coming to a stop. It was reported that with the new position of the moon, it would give off an amazing pyrotechnic display as well as cast so much light at night that streetlights would no longer be necessary.
Thousands were fooled, as they stood out at night looking up hoping to see the pyrotechnic display before eventually realizing what the date was.
This cartoon appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on April 1, 1905, and doesn’t depict those who have been fooled specifically on April Fool’s Day but rather types of people who have been fooled or who are considered fools in general. Some of the types of people depicted in this cartoon include the “Get rich quick investor,” “Member of Cassie Chadwick school of bankers,” “Gold brick buyer,” “Scientist who thinks he can create life,” etc.
(Cassie Chadwick was a fictitious name used by Elizabeth Bigly, who defrauded several banks throughout the United States by claiming to be the illegitimate daughter and heiress of Andrew Carnegie. Visiting Carnegie’s home through a mutual acquaintance, she stole promissory notes worth $2 million each, in which Carnegie’s signature was already on them. She used these promissory notes to borrow large sums of money from banks across the country until eventually caught and sentenced to 14 years in prison.)
The Chicago Tribune ran a story on April 1, 1906 about dinosaurs returning and invading Chicago, destroying the city. Whether anyone actually believed the story to be true is unknown.
This April Fool’s Day cartoon ran in many American newspapers in 1909.
On April 1, 1910, Minnesota Republican congressman, James Tawney, received a note in his office informing him to “Call up Mr. Train” at the number “Main 7380.” Tawney proceeded to do just that, which resulted in the following exchange:
“Mr. Train,” Tawney asked when he was connected with the number.
“Did you?” asked the voice at the other end.
“Did I what?” asked Tawney. “Who is this?”
“Union Station.”
Tawney then realized what day it was and slammed the phone down.
As the quality of the image may be a bit tough to read, I’ve copied the story below, which reads:
“The police have dropped the theory that there is any murder mystery involved in the human hand and foot found in a cigar box on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street, between Third and Lexington avenues yesterday. Several Bellevue Hospital doctors who saw the gruesome relics after they were brought to the Morgue today said they were undoubtedly anatomical specimens and that they had probably been left in the street by medical students with a warped sense of humor to run off an April fool joke.”
