On April Fool’s Day a lot of people will take some time out of their day to do a prank on a friend or family. But they are not the only ones. Even news organisations are falling into the spell of fakery. Be prepared to face the best April Fool’s stories in this article.
The clipping of the dirty cheap world-travelling ticket ever. Source–The Museum of Hoaxes.
The year of 1972 was the 100-year anniversary of Thomas Cook’s world travel tour. The London Times published two articles in memory of this tour as well as inviting 1000 lucky readers to purchase a similar tour package deal at Thomas Cook travel agent for only 1872 pounds. Owing to the growing inflation, this offer was ideally a nice budget. Countless people flooded into Thomas Cook offices, but they only ended up getting informed that it was only an April Fool’s joke told by the reporter, John Carter, who was fired afterwards.
Idyllic Landscape Beach Coast of “Murango”.
Again on 1st April 1980, The London Times covered a story illustrating a tiny island state named Murango in the Pacific Ocean. According to that report, most of residents on the island were of British origin. There were even many vivid details included, such as the state’s attempt to participate in Moscow Olympics, the Murango islanders’ cosy life style and things alike. However, this story was out-and-out fictitious.
Mona Lisa: No need to “fake” a smile any more. Source–ScienceBlogs.
No matter if you’re artistically inclined or not, you’re definitely no stranger to Mona Lisa’s smile. However, in 1990, The Independent reported that Mona Lisa turned out to have an appalling appearance different from what people were familiar with. In this article, it explained how Mona Lisa was looking like she was frowning after a layer of dirt was removed by an art restoration team. Again, this was only an April Fool’s story.
Have you ever dreamed of losing weight effortlessly by only wearing a pair of special socks? In 2000, this product did exist according to The Daily Mail. The story revealed that American scientists had invented “FatSox”, which were innovative socks that could suck fat out of human bodies once they were sweating. The Daily Mail had a great laugh about this one.
Speaking of penguins, the first picture that comes to mind must be the way they stagger clumsily on the ice. However, once you watched the 2008 video on BBC, you would probably question your customary perception and rewind one snatch over and over, as these chubby creatures are flying in the air! Later on, another follow-up video explained it was just special effects – and yet again a great April Fool’s story.
Source–Screenshot from the news page of The Times http://www.thetimes.co.ukarticlecampaign-to-change-imperial-to-gaia-college-gmlnx68n2.png
British unis were going to be renamed? Last year, The Times reported that students urged Imperial College and King’s College to be renamed for the sake of decolonisation in higher education. However, as everyone notices, the two colleges still remain unchanged. And why is that? It was yet again an April Fool’s story.
What will this year’s news hoaxes be like? Let’s wait and see!