Spain celebrates April Fool’s Day today

If you live in Spain or any South American country, watch your back today as, other than getting a paper cut out of what looks like the shadow of the gingerbread man stuck on your back (see image), you might be the victim of many other pranks as these countries celebrate the Dia De Los Santos Innocentes (literally Day of the Innocent Saints).

Even news channels are known to give false information that will only be revealed as a joke tomorrow, but apparently they are pretty obvious: UFO lands in the Royal Palace, President runs off with daughter of the opposition, are some examples rumored to have been announced on television. I’m going to try to watch every news bulletin today :)

On this day in history, Christians believe that when King Herod found out that Jesus was born, he ordered all children under the age of two in Bethlehem to be slain in order to protect his authority as King. How did such a sad day become one of jokes and laughter?

A bit of probing and there seem to be two possible explanations:1) kids play innocent pranks all the time, so playing pranks today is actually an ode to the children that were killed, or 2) jokes on this day have a pagan origin from the Middle Ages when the day was a joyous carnival and no one was held responsible for his actions; one thing blended into another and voila, prank day in Spain and Latin America was born.

I’m going with the second explanation. Joke away!