A Brief History
This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on April 1st. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event.
Digging Deeper
In Italy, France, Belgium, and French-speaking areas of Switzerland and Canada, a 1st April tradition dating back to at least 1508 is often known as “April fish” (poissons d’avril in French or pesce d’aprile in Italian).
On April 1, 1861, the municipality called East St. Louis was established.
On April 1, 1939, Phil Niekro, Hall of Fame pitcher and winner of 318 major league games, was born.
In a startling April Fools prank, the BBC program Panorama aired on April 1, 1957 and showed an astonished British audience farmers growing spaghetti on trees in Switzerland!
On April 1, 1970, the Detroit Automobile Comedy Consortium unleashed a sort of automotive April Fool’s joke on the American public by introducing the American Motors Corporation’s entry into the small car market to combat the rise in small car imports from Germany and Japan.
On April 1, 1984, three suburban Cleveland young men started a business that would become “The Aquarium Superstore!”
On April 1, 2015, Ashland’s Hidden Realms opened for business.
On April 1, 2016, recent news programs were flush with news about the 2016 Presidential race, and Rafael Eduardo (“Ted”) Cruz was featured in a couple of these videos, much to his embarrassment.
On April 1, 2017, news station EFKA reported that Chelsea Clinton was actually the love child of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
On April 1, 2018, we had just two words for you, April Fools!
On this April Fool’s Day, April 1, 2021, we not only wished you a happy April 1st, but to dispel some historical and current event misconceptions, we also wanted to share with you three strange events that actually happened in the history of the southernmost continent, Antarctica.
Question for students (and subscribers): Which event that occurred on today’s date would you like to learn more about? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Andrews, John and Matt Baker. Timeline of World History. Thunder Bay Press, 2020.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
