Look Out, It's April Fools' Day by Frank Modell

So for those cultures, the day to watch out for is December 28. Much of Latin America celebrates “El Dia de los Inocentes,” or “ Day of the Innocents,” a late December Catholic feast with extremely un-silly origins that somehow became a day of jokes and pranks. In Latin America, you have a few chances to be pranked

If you really want to go down an April Fools’ rabbit hole, one apocryphal origin theory suggests that when France switched from the Julian calendar to the current Gregorian calendar in the 1500s, people thought it would be funny to jokingly celebrate the old “New Year’s” and make fun of people who forgot the change. Interestingly enough, fish are also considered a lucky symbol in many areas of the world, and are important in a lot of New Year’s traditions. This harmless bit of mischief is accompanied by the phrase “Poisson d’Avril” which means, of course, “April Fish.” As one French site noted, it’s not exactly the latest trend or anything, but if people are charitable, maybe they’ll give you a half-hearted laugh for your efforts. In France, a longstanding tradition is to stick paper fish on other people’s backs, kind of like an elevated “kick me” sign. While the origins of April Fools’ Day aren’t unanimously known, historians are pretty certain Ancient Romans, Western Europeans and people from the British Isles had a lot to do with it. Two brothers sticking April Fools' Day fish on each other's backs on April 1, 1963.

Look Out, It's April Fools' Day by Frank Modell