April Fool's day

The history of April Fool's Day:

FAMOUS HOAXES Swiss Mountain Cleaners The Swiss Tourism Board released a video that revealed the secret of why their mountains look so clean. It was due to the hard work of the Association of Swiss Mountain Cleaners, whose members daily scaled the Alps, scrubbing the rocks of unsightly bird droppings. The cleaning not only maintained the beauty of the Alps, but also prevented the droppings from eating away at the rocks, causing cavities that might eventually lead to the complete erosion and disappearance of the mountains. Millions of people watched the video, and 30,000 took the online test to determine whether they had what it took to become a mountain cleaner (aka "Felsenputzer"). Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKIqGYRuvbk

Flying Penguins The BBC announced that camera crews filming near the Antarctic for its natural history series Miracles of Evolution had captured footage of Adélie penguins taking to the air. It even offered a video clip of these flying penguins, which quickly became one of the most viewed videos on the internet. Presenter Terry Jones explained that, instead of huddling together to endure the Antarctic winter, these penguins took to the air and flew thousands of miles to the rainforests of South America where they "spend the winter basking in the tropical sun." A follow-up video explained how the BBC created the special effects of the flying penguins. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4

King’s College Choir Uses Helium The renowned King's College Choir is not known for farce. This made it noteworthy when they released a video announcing that complex regulations had made it impractical to continue featuring young boys in the choir, and that they had been forced to find other ways to replicate the high pitch of the boys' preadolescent voices. Because the older choral scholars had vetoed the "surgical solution," the choir leaders had finally adopted a suggestion made by a colleague in the Chemistry Department — use helium. The video, demonstrating the use of helium during a performance, generated almost 1 million views on YouTube. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukDAfF0-8q8

Pregnancy revealed via speakerphone Stephen Barrows, professor of economics at Aquinas College, had a strict rule that if a student's phone rang during class they had to answer it on speakerphone, in front of everyone. So when Taylor Nefcy's phone rang on April 1, he enforced the rule and the entire class proceeded to hear this, "Hi, this is Kevin from the Pregnancy Resource Center. Per your request, I'm calling to inform you that the test results have come back positive. Congratulations!" Barrows' face immediately turned red, and he muttered, "OK, you might want to shut that down." When the call finally ended, he gravely apologized to her, but she assured him it was okay. She had been expecting the news. In fact, she already had a name picked out for the baby. Its first name would be April, and the middle name Fool. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9rymEWJX38

Google Nose Google announced Google Nose Beta allowing people to smell what they searched for online. The company explained that they had leveraged "new and existing technologies to offer the sharpest olfactory experience available," with their "street sense vehicles" roaming far and wide to index millions of different scents, thereby creating the "Google Aromabase" of 15M+ "scentibytes." The scents were smellable by people at their computers because Google had figured out how to manipulate the photons coming out of the screen, causing them to intersect with "infrasound waves," thereby temporarily aligning molecules to emulate particular scents. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFbYadm_mrw

Teleportation machine University of Michigan College of Engineering released a video revealing that their researchers had created a teleportation machine. Materials Science Prof. Xavier Vlad demonstrated how he could teleport a small key from one end of the machine to the other. He further explained that the process was discovered by accident — just like the discovery of Post-It notes. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHjczeJIooc

Mood paint Peugeot announced that the Peugeot RCZ would be the first car to come with "mood paint." This paint consisted of a "specially developed psychochromatic coating" that altered its molecular structure to emit light at varying wavelengths — "literally changing the color of the car to reflect how you're feeling." Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5_5RDKxOY

Sony Ultra-Small Ultrabook In 2012, Sony debuted the VAIO® Q Ultrabook, boasting 8GB of RAM, HD 1080p resolution, and full 3-D graphic support. It could also fit in your pocket because it was the size of a quarter. Sony promised that it was the "lightest, most portable ultrabook ever," offering "portability without compromise." "Watch the future of mobile computing unfold before your eyes," the company said, "and soon, in the palm of your hand."  Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3qM05C9hMI

Google Animal Translator Google UK purportedly offered a version of Google Translate which could be used to talk with animals. Taking Google’s translation software and applying it to animals, one of 2010’s best jokes saw Google doing their bit to encourage ‘greater interaction and understanding between animal and human’ – via an Android app that ‘recognizes and transcribes words and phrases that are common to a species, like cats for example.’ They even made a YouTube video promoting it. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I24bSteJpw Home-grown spaghetti picked fresh from the trees In 1957 the British news show Panorama broadcast a news segment about a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. They convinced the audience that last winter had been the mildest winter in history and that made the spaghetti farmers in Switzerland very happy. After the hoax had been broadcast, hundreds of people phoned the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU