April

April




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April is said to be derived from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, so April is the month of love







April Fools Day Other British and English Customs and Traditions







April begins with a day of fun and jokes - April Fool's Day. No one really knows when this custom began but it has been kept for hundreds of years.







It is commonly believed that that April Fool came about bease of the change of calendars. In 1582, Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar called the Gregorian calendar which is the calendar we still use today.







The new calendar was introduced because the old calendar, called the Julian calendar, was ahead by ten days because each year was a little too long. Gregory moved the new calendar forward by ten days.







Britain didn’t accept the new calendar until 1752.







In the Julian calendar, the old calendar, New Year was celebrated from March 25th to April 1st. The first day of the Gregorian calendar is January 1st.







In France , people were forgetful and other people refused to accept the new calendar, so they still celebrated New Year on April 1st. Other people would play tricks on them and call them April Fools.







April fooling became popular in England and Scotland during the 1700s.







The First of April, some do say



Is set apart for All Fools Day;



But why the people call it so,



Not I, nor they themselves do know.







April Fool jokes usually involve pursuading someone to do something silly, like looking for hen's teeth, striped paint, a long weight, a left-handed screwdriver or some other non-existent thing.







However, you can only play April Fools on people before midday –at midday the fun must stop or the trickster is told:







'April Fool's Day is past and gone,



Your're the fool and I am none.'







One of the great April Fool jokes took place on April 1st, 1957 . The BBC TV programme Panorama did a documentary on 'spaghetti farmers' growing 'spaghetti trees.' The hoax Panorama programme featured a family from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry.







The joke was an enormous success. Hundreds of people believed there was such things as spaghetti trees. Soon after the broadcast ended, the BBC began to receive hundreds of calls from puzzled viewers. Did spaghetti really grow on trees, they wanted to know. Others were eager to learn how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC reportedly replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." :)







April Fool 2005







In the age of computers we now have April fool jokes online with Ask Jeeves promising a humanoid search robot that will "find your car keys" and Google launching Google Gulp – a "smart drink" that makes you more intelligent and less thirsty.







The Cuckoo







The arrival of the cuckoo is the signal that sping has come. Various April dates are called 'Cuckoo Day' in different parts of the country.







Here is an old traditional rhyme about the Cuckoo's summer life cycle:







In April I open my bill



In May I sing night and day



In June I change my tune



In July far far I fly



In August away I must







The cuckoo sings from St. Tiburtius' Day (14th April) to St John's Day (24th June).







Superstition



If you should hear the cuckoo sing on St, Tiburtius Day, you should turn over all the money in your pockets, spit and not look at the ground! If you do this and are standing on soft ground when you do it, you will have loads of good luck. However if you are standing on hard ground - the cuckoo's call means bad luck.







Find out more about English Supersitions







The Swallow







The swallow makes its reappearance during April. Earlier people wre mystified by the disappearance of many birds during the winter and at one time thought that the swallow spent the cold months hidden in the mud at the bottom of ponds. Traditionally April 15th is 'Swallow Day' in England , the date on which returning swallows were seen again.







Weather-lore, beliefs and sayings







April showers bring May flowers.







If early April is foggy



Rain in June



Will make lanes boggy.







When April blows its horn



'Tis good for hay and corn.







April wet - good wheat.







Till April's dead, change not a thread.







Daffodil Sunday







The 1st Sunday in April is called Daffodil Sunday. In Victorian times families picked daffodils from their gardens and took them to local hospitals to give to the sick.







Candle Auctions







On April 6th there used to be Candle Auctions. A candle was lit and a pin stuck in it about two and a half centimeters from the top. Then people would start bidding for a piece of church land to let to the poor for a year. The person bidding when the candle burned down enough to let the pin fall became the owner of the land.







St Georges Day







The 23rd April is St. George’s Day . St George is the Patron Saint of England and also of Scouting. It is said that he once saved a village from great danger. The village were frightened of a fierce dragon who lived close by, so St George killed the dragon.



Read more about St George here







Festivals and Traditions







Easter usually comes in the month of April. It is what is called a 'moveable feast' because the date of it is fixed according to the moon. Easter Sunday has to be the first Sunday after the full moon which means that Easter can fall as early as March 22 or as late as April 25.







1st - April Fool’s Day.







Daffodil Sunday







Unusual Customs throughout the year







Anniversaries







April 1969 Concordes maiden flight.







1st - In 1973 VAT (Value Added Tax) was introduced in Britain .







2nd April 1805 Hans Christian Andersen, Danish storywriter, was born.







2nd April – 14th June 1982 The Falklands War.







5th April 1640 Pocahontas got married.







6th April Robert Edwin Peary reached the North Pole in 1909







7th April 1827 First matches sold.







8th April 1973 Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, died aged 91.







8th April Buddhist: Hanamatsuri (Buddha’s Birthday). Zen Buddhists use this day as a flower festival to celebrate the birth of the Buddha.







9th April 1806 Brunel (Great Western Railway) born.







10th April 1998 The signing of the Good Friday Agreement.







12th April 1606 Union Flag became the official flag of the United Kingdom .







12th April 1961 Yuri Gagarin made the first flight into space.







13th April 1936 Jow Payne (Luton Town F.C.) scored ten goals in one match.







13/14th April Baisakhi. India festival that takes place at harvest time and New Year in the Punjab .







13th-16th April Sonkran. A New Year Water Festival in Thailand when people make small paper boats to put candals on and float them out to sea. It is a time to cleanse all bad spirits out of the body.







15th April 1912 HMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank.







14th April 1931 Highway Code first issued.







16th April 1889 Charlie Chaplin born.







18th April 1934 First launderette opened.







19th April 1978 Post marks were introduced in Britain by the Post Office.







21st April Queen Elizabeth II was born.







22nd April 1805 Hans Christian Andersen was born in Denmark . He wrote poetry and fables but is famous chiefly for his fairy tales. He died in 1875.







22nd April 2000 Earth Day.







23rd April St. George’s Day – Patron Saint of England and also of Scouting.







23rd April 1584 / 1613 Shakespeare’s Birthday (1584). Also the anniversary of his death (1613). William Shakespeare was born in Stratford on Avon . He earned his living by acting small parts, by rewriting old plays and then by writing plays himself. His plays were written in verse.







24th April 1949 Sweet rationing ended in England .







25th April 1953 DNA, the building blokes of all life forms, was discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick. Their achievement was recognised in 1962 when they received the Nobel Prize for Physiology.







26th April 1957 First broadcast of "The Sky at Night".







27th April 1791 Samuel Morse was born. Learn and practice Morse Code.