April Fools' Day: A History

Tomorrow is April Fools' Day -- a day when . A video by Jeremiah Warner, “The History of April Fools Day,” seeks to explain the beginnings of this tradition.

According to Warner, the start of April Fools' Day was based on miscommunication of the new year of the Gregorian calendar in France. This led to playing pranks on the first of April and became popular in other countries. While that happened in France, Warner states that England had already established April Fools' Day by 1754. He also mentions various media outlets have utilized the day to publish prank stories, such as a claim in 1977 by the British daily newspaper The Guardian that an island in the shape of a semi-colon had been found in the Indian Ocean.

This year, there have already been high profile April Fools' Day pranks such as Google declaring the end of YouTube and annnouncing the beginning of a "Treasure Map" layer in Google Maps.

What pranks have you done, witnessed, or been the target of on April Fool’s Day? Let us know in the comments.