The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Every day on April 1st, you have to be careful what you read in here.

This day, known to accountants as the beginning of the second

quarter, is known to most people as April Fool's Day. Why do we even have a day

where we try to trick people and why does that day occur on April 1st?

Learn more about April Fool's Day

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. The idea of a day where people would play pranks on each other goes back to

antiquity which is a theme you should now be familiar with on this show.

However, the Association of April 1st as that day of mischief is pretty much crowded in mystery.

We really don't know where the tradition came from.

There were several things that were historically similar that happened around the same time of year,

and that's the best guess we have as to where it originated. The Romans had a festival known as

Hilaria, which took place on March 25th. Make note of that date because it's going to come up again soon.

As the name mind suggests,

Hilaria in Latin means the cheerful ones,

and is the root word for the English words hilarious and hilarity. The feast was a celebration of the goddess

Cyboli, who in Rome was also known as Magna Matar or the Great Mother. We don't know a ton about

the festival, but we do know that the people wore

masquerades and they could mock whoever they liked without repercussions on that one day.

Another possible origin for April Fool's Day has to do with the change in the calendar.

If you recall from my previous episode on why we celebrate New Year's Day on January 1st,

many countries used to celebrate the start of the new year on March 25th.

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