BRIEF INTRODUCTION  
April Fools' Day is celebrated in the Western world on April 1st of every year.  
Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day#, April 1st is not a legal holiday, but is  
widely recognized and celebrated as a day which tolerates practical jokes* and  
general foolishness. The day is marked by the commission of good humoured or funny  
jokes, hoaxes① and other practical jokes of varying sophistication② on friends,  
family members, teachers, neighbors, work associates, etc.
附：# All Fools' Day —— 万愚节
    
     * practical joke ：a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended  
to make the victim appear foolish)   可译为“恶作剧”
  
     ①hoax n. 愚弄人, 恶作剧
     ②sophistication n.老练, 精明, 复杂, 精密, 有教养, 诡辩, 强词夺理
practical jokes of varying sophistication 个人认为可译为“各种精巧的恶作剧”
Traditionally, in some countries such as New Zealand, the UK, Australia, and South  
Africa, the jokes only last until noon, and someone who plays a trick after noon is  
called an "April Fool".It is for this reason that newspapers in the U.K. that run a  
front page April fool only do so on the first (morning) edition. Elsewhere, such as  
in France, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Russia, The Netherlands, Germany,  
Brazil, Canada, and the U.S., the jokes last all day. The earliest recorded  
association between April 1 and foolishness can be found in Chaucer's Canterbury  
Tales (1392). Many writers suggest that the restoration① of January 1 as New Year's  
Day in the 16th century was responsible for the creation of the holiday, but this  
theory does not explain earlier references.
附：①restoration n. 恢复, 归还, 复位


WELL-KNOWN PRANKS  
Write Only Memory: Signetics* advertised Write Only Memory IC① databooks in 1972  
through the late 1970s.
附：# Signetics：是半导体制造产业中的一家主要业者
     ①IC=Integrated Circuit 集成电路
（只见过ROM，没见过WOM...）
Decimal① time: Repeated several times in various countries, this hoax involves  
claiming that the time system will be changed to one in which units of time are  
based on powers of 10.
附：①Decimal adj.十进制的
（不敢想象）
Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New  
York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell# to "reduce the  
country's debt" and renamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell". When asked about the sale,  
White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek① that the Lincoln  
Memorial# had also been sold and would henceforth② be known as the Lincoln Mercury  
Memorial.
附：# Liberty Bell n. <美>独立钟(指美国费城独立厅的大钟, 1776年7月4日鸣此钟宣布美国
独立, 1835年被损)
     ①tongue-in-cheek adj. 不认真的, 不当真的, 半开玩笑的
     # Lincoln Memorial 林肯纪念馆
     ②henceforth adv. 今后
     
In 1983, Australian millionaire businessman Dick Smith claimed to have towed① an  
iceberg② from Antarctica to Sydney Harbour. He used a barge③ covered with white  
plastic and fire extinguisher④ foam to convince witnesses.
附：①tow v.拖, 拉, 牵引
     ②iceberg n.冰山
     ③barge n.驳船
     ④fire extinguisher 灭火器
     ⑤foam n.泡沫

BY RADIO STATIONS  
Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect①: In 1976, British astronomer Sir② Patrick  
Moore told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that unique alignment③ of two planets would  
result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 a.m.  
that day. He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience "a strange  
floating sensation". Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked.
附：①gravitational effect   引力效应
     ②Sir 爵士
     ③alignment n.调整成直线，成一条直线
Space Shuttle① lands in San Diego: In 1993, DJ Dave Rickards told listeners of KGB
-FM in San Diego that Space Shuttle Discovery had been diverted② from Edwards Air  
Force Base and would be landing at Montgomery Field, a small municipal③ airport  
with a 4,577 foot runway. Thousands of people went to the airport to watch the  
purported landing, causing traffic jams throughout Kearny Mesa.Moreover, there  
wasn't even a shuttle in orbit④ at the time.
附：①Space Shuttle 航天飞机
     ②divert v.转向;转移;变道
     ③municipal adj.市的;市政的;市立的,市办的
     ④orbit n.(天体等的)运行轨道
Phone call: In 1998, UK presenter① Nic Tuff of West Midlands radio station  
pretended to be the British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he called the then South  
African President Nelson Mandela for a chat. It was only at the end of the call when  
Nic asked Nelson what he was doing for April Fools' Day that the line went dead.
附：①presenter n.主持人
     # Tony Blair 英国首相布莱尔
     # Nelson Mandela 南非总统曼德拉
（这个给力！）
Country to Metal: Country and gospel① WIXE in Monroe②#, North Carolina does a  
prank every year. In 2009, midday host③Bob Rogers announced he was changing his  
show to heavy metal. This resulted in numerous phone calls, but about half were from  
listeners wanting to request a song.[27]
附：①gospel (大写)福音,基督教教义
     ②Monroe n. 门罗（美国路易斯安那州城市, 美国密歇根州城市）
     ③midday host 午间节目主持人
# Country and gospel WIXE in Monroe 虽然WIXE查不到，但结合下文可看出这句说的是大致是
“WIXE是美国门罗的一项乡村福音音乐节目”
Cellphone Ban①: In New Zealand the radio station The Edge's Morning Madhouse  
enlisted② the help of the Prime Minister on April 1st to inform the entire country  
that cellphones are to be banned in New Zealand. Hundreds of callers rang in  
disgruntled③ at the new law.
附：①ban n.禁令, 禁止
     ②enlist v.获得了...的赞助（或支持）
     ③disgruntled adj. 不满意的

BY NEWSPAPERS
In 2010 British newspaper The Sun ran an article about their new "Scratch① and  
Sniff②" paper, providing a sample of plain newspaper. This led to a lot of readers  
sniffing the paper in an attempt to smell the scent③.
附：①Scratch v.抓, 搔（痒）, 划破, 划掉
     ②Sniff vi.嗅
     ③scent n.气味, 香味

REAL NEWS ON APRIL FOOL'S DAY
The frequency of April Fools' hoaxes sometimes makes people doubt real news stories
released on April 1.
The April 1, 1946 Aleutian① Island earthquake tsunami that killed 165 people in
Hawaii and Alaska resulted in the creation of a tsunami warning system, the Pacific
Tsunami Warning Centre, established in 1949 for Pacific Ocean countries. The tsunami
in question is known in Hawaii as the "April Fools' Day Tsunami" due to people
drowning because of the assumptions② that the warnings were an April Fools' prank.
附：①Aleutian adj. 阿留申的 n. 阿留申
     ②assumption n.假象，臆断
    
The de-a-th of King George II of Greece on April 1, 1947.
In 1979, Iran declared April 1 its national Republic Day. Thirty-one years on, this
continues to be mistaken for a joke.
（无语...）


The ѕ_ui-ci-de de-a--th of De-at-hrock① legend Rozz Williams was on April 1, 1998.
附：①De-at-hrock de-a-th摇滚
  
Leslie Cheung①, a famous singer and actor from Hong Kong, committed ѕ-u-i-ci-de in 2003
due to severe depression.
附：①Leslie Cheung 张国荣


Gmail's April 1, 2004 launch① was widely believed to be a prank, as Go-og-le
traditionally perpetrates② April Fools' Day hoaxes each April 1, and the announced
1GB online storage was at the time vastly more than existing online email services
附：①launch n.推出
     ②perpetrate v.做(坏事)
Another Go-o-gle-related event that turned out not to be a hoax occurred on April 1,
2007, when employees at Go-og-le's New York City office were alerted that a ball
python① kept in an engineer's cubicle② had escaped and was on the loose③. An
internal e-mail acknowledged that "the timing…could not be more awkward" but that
the snake's escape was in fact an actual occurrence and not a prank.
附：①ball python 球蟒
     ②cubicle n.寝室，小卧室
     ③on the loose   逍遥法外
On April 1, 2009, a Virus/Worm called Conficker was released and spread to millions
of computers, releasing personal info and deleting files. This was supposed to be a
joke, but random computers throughout America were hit. Before this happened, news
media like NBC, Fox News, ABC and CBS told the viewers to install firewalls and
updates to their Windows computers before it hit.
On April 1st 2010, S-o-ny Computer Entertainment released Fi-rm-war-e 3.21 for the S-o-ny
Pla-ySt-ation 3. This fir-mw-are disabled the "Other OS" feature on all Play-Stati-n 3
models. The "Other OS" feature had allowed customers to use the Pl-ayStat-ion 3 as a
full fledged computer running Li-n-ux. Because the "upgrade" occurred on April 1, many
people thought that it was a joke.

Extraordinary good！