When the BBC won April Fools Day in 1957

How all those dorky April Fools Day news jokes started: Spaghetti on trees. Subscribe to our channel The modern April Fools Day ritual has already begun you have to figure out which stories are legitimate and which ones are pranks. As the above video shows, it wasn t always this way. The media used to be the victim of pranks, not the perpetrator. But thanks to a watershed prank by the BBC (and a few merry pranksters before that), April Fools Day has begun a universally loved (or loathed) part of our daily reading. If you want to learn more about the holiday, you can read Michelle Hackman s earnest explainer: Or nerd out over hoaxes past at is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what s really driving the events in the headlines. Check out to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app. Check out our full video catalog: Follow Vox on Twitter: Or on Facebook: