Porky Bickar and Foolish History

this episode of the history guy brought to you by magellan tv it was a beautiful clear day in spring of 1974 when the residents of the alaska panhandle town of siska awoke to a surprise thirty four hundred foot mount edgum towering over the city was belching thick black smoke while mount edgecomb was known to be a volcano it had last erupted some 3000 years before and was long thought to have been dormant panic calls went into authorities including the local coast guard station which immediately dispatched a helicopter to go check out this new volcanic activity that was threatening the city as the helicopter came over the summit the coast guardsmen inside were shocked to see down inside the crater of mount edgecomb a large pile of burning tires and spray-painted in the snow in 50-foot tall letters the words april fools the eruption of mount edgecombe the work of a colorful local man named porky bicker is often included among lists of the greatest april fool's day pranks of all times but it does raise an interesting question when did this tradition of pulling pranks on april the 1st begin and it being now april the 2nd we can answer with no fooling around now you might have imagined that this facetious faux holiday was a relatively modern invention but the joke is actually much older than you might have thought it is history that deserves to be remembered and talking about fake volcanoes i actually just started a new documentary series on magellan tv called countdown to catastrophe which talks about how scientists use new technology to predict when real volcanoes might erupt if you haven't signed up for magellan tv i have no idea why you wouldn't because if you like the history guy you'll love magellan tv it's a new kind of subscription service it's owned by filmmakers it's got more than 3 000 documentaries of all kinds every one of them worth watching and if you're a fan of the history guy if you sign up in the link in our description you'll get 30 off your annual membership which is an entire year at the cost of just around three dollars and fifty cents a month countdown to catastrophe is a new series on magellan tv that provides a fascinating insight into the tools and methods used by scientists today to better understand and predict natural disasters it's full of the dramatic footage breathtaking visuals and first-hand information from scientists searching for answers that can help us both better understand the world around us and better protect humanity from the powerful forces of nature a series alone is worth the price of subscription i'm a big fan of history documentaries you know that but you also might enjoy science or space or nature all of which magellan tv offers magellan tv has the richest and most varied historical content available anywhere it's got ancient modern current early modern war biography and even non-historical genres like science and crime of course are historical in nature and you can watch countdown to catastrophe anywhere on your television laptop or mobile device magellan is compatible with roku amazon fire tv apple tv google play and ios and you can even cast it from your phone to your television if you're like me and you're already subscribed to magellan tv then check out countdown to catastrophe it's really a fascinating series and if you haven't signed up then use the link in the description to get that screaming deal of 30 off your annual subscription sign up you'll be glad you did according to the 7th century greek monk maximus the confessor in ancient rome hilaria represented any time of celebration or rejoicing a celebration that might include say a marriage or the birth of a child but hilaria also represented a festival that honored sibylli the mother of gods it's difficult to say if the holiday whose name literally means cheery or mary and which was derived from a previous greek celebration and by some accounts and even earlier egyptian celebration was the inspiration for the modern tradition of pranking but the celebration did occur at the time of the vernal equinox which represented rebirth and was immediately before the calends of april and at least in imperial times including games in amusements and shenanigans such as dressing in disguise the festival of hilaria says that a day that was set aside to have amusements around the beginning of spring is an idea that's as old as civilization itself but it's not really clear whether or how that transformed into the modern tradition of april fools the tradition though especially the part of dressing in disguise which at one point became the focus of an assassination plot against emperor commodus is surprisingly similar to a little understood medieval liturgical tradition called the feast of fools on this feast day lower level clergy would masquerade as senior clergy and hold masses that would mock church traditions the exact purpose of the festival isn't clear and the practice was officially banned in 1431 but still the tradition might have been difficult to eradicate and might have been the inspiration for the celebration described in victor hugo's 1831 novel the hunchback of notre dame set in 1482. however the feast of fools was traditionally celebrated in january not april however that gives rise to another popular but unproven theory that the tradition dates to the 1434 edict of russian in which king charles ix officially made january the first the starting of the new year in france which previously been recognized at different dates throughout the kingdom but in some cases with a festival that was held between march 25th and april 1st as some of the king either did not get the word or refused to recognize the new date they were mocked as fools thus the feast of fools which used to be held in january now the date of the new new year was moved to april the date of the old new year and became a way to mock people who clung to outdated traditions however that explanation has flaws first it doesn't explain how the tradition came to be celebrated elsewhere as other countries didn't change the date of the new year at the same time and second some theories placed their tradition much farther back than the 16th century according to the website info please joseph boskin a professor of history at boston university offered a possible explanation in 1983. boston argued that the april fool's tradition dated specifically to the reign of the 4th century roman emperor constantine the great the story boston surmised came from a discussion between constantine and a court jester named kugel where coogle insisted that he could run the empire better than the emperor to test the theory constantine made google emperor for a day april 1st the new year on the roman calendar kugel then passed an edit calling for absurdity that day and the edict was so enjoyed that it became an annual tradition professor boskin argues that the april fool's tradition was tied to the reason that courts had gestures to begin with the serious business of putting events into perspective through humor professor boskin's new theory was publicized widely by the associated press who apparently took some time to figure out that they had been had by the good professor the entire thing was made up itself an april fool's prank and well we no longer have evidence that april fools is directly tied to constantine the great it certainly predates boskin's prank in 1983. some historians tied the tradition to the story of the wise men of gotham which has the people of the nottinghamshire town of gotham meaning goat home in the 12th century pretending to be mad in order to avoid attacks by king john by engaging in foolish tasks they convince the royal stewards that the town is crazy unless john declines to visit them april fools is some theorize a tribute to how the men of gotham were wise by acting like fools while the story apparently dates back at least to the 15th century and has parallels in other cultures its actual link to april the first is unproven another connection might be made to jeffrey chaucer's 13th century canterbury tales the tale the nun's priest's tale regards a vain rooster and the trickster fox reynard at first the fox tricks the rooster capturing him but then the rooster tricks the fox and escapes both then chide each other for being fooled by pride the tale of deception became a popular theme in children's books from the 13th century on and by itself been derived from one of aesop's fables the fox and the crow whose origins may date back to ancient greece notably the nuns priest tale says that the story occurs on scene march begin 30 days and 2 or the 32nd day of march which would be april the 1st given that interpretation the day may again have ancient origins represented in the story that are tied to tricking people who are fooled by their own pride on the first day of april however the connection is unclear and many scholars today assume based on other cues in the story that the 32nd of march is likely misprinted and that the date is intended to be 32 days after the end of march in early may rather than on april 1st at very least though the popular perception might have helped to spur the modern tradition and its april 1st date even in france they may predate the edict of russian in 1508 french poet eloy demervel wrote a poem that includes a dialogue between satan and lucifer plotting evil deeds the poem includes a line that roughly translates as the infamous pimp of men and women april fish poisson davril or april fish is the modern french term for april fools although it's not clear that denmarvel was referring specifically to april the first or merely to a foolish person according to the online museum of hoaxes in 1561 the flemish poet eduard de dene published a book of fables that includes a poem entitled roughly refrain on aaron day which is the first of april in which a noble man sends a servant on a group of absurd aarons on april 1st the servant seems to recognize the trick fearing that he has been sent on a fool's errand the poem suggests the tradition was already well recognized by the time english antiquarian john aubry noted the tradition in a 1687 work on english traditions noting fool's holy day we observe it on ye first of april and so it is kept in germany everywhere the reference confirms that the tradition was well accepted in england by that time and it was shortly thereafter that we see the first reference to one of the most famous of the english april fools jokes from the 13th century to the 18th century the tower of london included a menagerie animals that have been acquired as royal gifts the menagerie used to be a significant tourist attraction and a bastion of the tower torn down in the 1800s and now in ruins it was called the lions tower so named after the lions that were supposedly kept there a letter in a 1698 newspaper references sending people to see the washing of the lions on the first of april the trick involves sending a gullible person to see the ceremony of the washing of the lions which supposedly involved herding the tower's lions down to the thames to be washed in the river it was of course a fool's errand as there was no such ceremony it was just a popular trick to get someone to come stand around looking stupid the trick continued and was revived in the 19th century when pranksters would send engraved invitations or hand them out to visitors a 1771 entry in the diary of anna green winslow a member of a prominent boston family in which she references her father sending her mother after a supposed flock of wild geese literally a wild goose chase on april 1st shows that the practice was well established in america in the 18th century april fool's pranks became perhaps easier as people became more trusting of media on april fools 1878 americans were taken in by a widely publicized story that claimed that thomas edison had created a machine that will feed the human race in the story edison was quoted saying to startled reporters that his machine made all sorts of food stuffs from dirt taken away from the cellar and water taken from these pipes edison was quoted saying i believe in fact i know that in 10 years my mission will be used to provide the tables of the civilized world meat will no longer be killed and vegetables will no longer be grown except by savages as to details edison apparently demured saying that he was applying for several patents but did reveal that i form all my meat compounds by exposing three elements in a red-hot state to nitrogen gas despite the article becoming increasingly absurd and in the end concluding the machine would cost perhaps five or six dollars enough people were taken in by the hoax that edison received a flood of letters the santa barbara press was taken in and appalled planning that the device would create laziness and thus would produce damnation obliteration and annihilation of race if anything would edison himself congratulated the editor who originated the story calling the prank very ingenious if you think that people would have become more aware as time moves on well maybe not in another famous prank on april fool's day 1957 the very serious bbc series panorama took in at least hundreds of viewers with a story of residents of a swiss town having a bountiful spaghetti harvest owing to a mild winter and the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil when hundreds of viewers called to see how they too could grow their own spaghetti the bbc reportedly told them to put a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best of course pranks continue if anything they become more common in the digital age and there are detractors for the tradition people who argue that it's mean-spirited to pull the pranks and of course it can cause confusion if actual news occurs on april the 1st then it can also be dangerous a prank in 1980 that was very similar to porky bicker's alaska volcano prank in which a local news station reported that the 600 foot tall great blue hill in milton massachusetts was erupting led to a general panic and resulted in the firing of the station manager and while there's no real agreement over exactly how april fool's day started it is surprisingly ubiquitous it's celebrated throughout the world although traditions differ for example in the united kingdom the pranks are supposed to be done before noon anyone who pulls a prank afternoon is considered themselves to be the april fool and in many spanish-speaking countries the very similar holy innocence day is celebrated but not on april 1st but instead at the end of december alex bose who's the curator of the online museum of hoaxes theorizes that the reason it's so ubiquitous is because so many cultures had spring festivals things he calls renewal days that included some sort of organized mayhem often the wearing of costumes and that played an important role the the social order is temporarily challenged but it's restored showing the stability of society in the same way that winter challenges life only to have the circle of life restored with spring which begins apparently on april 2nd happy renewal day i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 70,989

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, april first, april fools, history of holidays

Id: 0mHpzSjxpfw

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021