In the spirit of the holiday, I thought I would share a few controversial April Fool's day pranks.
April 1st, 2003
When Glenn Howlett, a city employee of London, Ontario, was on vacation, three other city employees sent him a letter telling him the deadline for his report had been pushed up and was due in two weeks. Howlett flew home immediately to finish his report. It was so stressful that he suffered heart palpitations that eventually forced him into retirement. When Howlett found out it was a prank, he sued, costing the city $75,000.
April 1st, 1991
The Times of London, reported the government's new traffic plan for the M25, the highway that encircles London. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, all traffic would travel clockwise around the city, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, traffic would travel counter-clockwise (on weekends you could travel either direction). The BBC believed the story, and even aired interviews of motorists who complained that normally 5-mile shopping trips would now be 127 miles.
April, 1994
PC Computing magazine reported Congress was considering a bill to make it illegal to surf the net while drunk, and attributed it to the term "Information Superhighway", "Congress apparently thinks it is bad to be drunk on any highway no matter which kind of highway" the magazine reported. Many people took the story seriously, the Capitol was flooded with angry phone calls. Several politicians mentioned in the story had to publicly deny it.
Have a happy April Fool's Day!
Source: The BRI
1 comments:
One April Fools Day, I got up early and zip tied a plastic dollar store alligator so it was sticking out of the storm drain on Kings Blvd. He was there quite awhile, then suddenly the alligator vanished. I also put a For Sale by Owner Sign below the welcome to Corvallis sign on the Van Buren street bridge and Keep off the Grass signs in several city parks with large expanses of citizen use grass. I don't think these April Fools jokes were well received by the city.
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