The Great Month of April
Spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. The planet Pluto will pass Jupiter. Holiday in San Serriffe. The body of the Loch Ness Monster had been found. Burger King's Left-Hander Whopper for the Lefties. All of these seemed silly, which they were. Practical jokes, they all were, once said to celebrate April Fools' Day. But it come on the right time.
April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar. The spring season is days old, and what better way to forget the winter season than celebrating April Fools' Day? It goes back to the Middle Age, even have its precursor during Roman times. There's no need to do some research on this, as this (informal) occasion can be seen as a breather from the conflicts that were frequent back then. How it ended up as a worldwide celebration was no mystery either, as this time of the year can be seen as a beginning of sort. The month is also significant if one would look at worldwide events. Jazz Appreciation Month. National Poetry Month. Passover. Buddha's Birthday (April 8). Easter.
Below are some important happenings, all of which take place during the month of April:
April 1, 1854: Charles Dickens's novel, "Hard Times", began serialization.
April 3, 1933: First flight over Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. This British expedition was led by the Marquis of Clydesdale.
April 4, 1949: Twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty, creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
April 6, 1320: The Scots reaffirmed their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath.
April 8, 1820: The Venus de Milo was discovered on Melos, an island in the Aegean Sea.
April 9, 1860: Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville made the oldest known recording of an audible human voice.
April 10, 1864: Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg was proclaimed emperor of Mexico.
April 11, 1919: The International Labour Organization (ILO) was founded.
April 13, 1204: Constantinople fell to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.
April 15, 1865: Abraham Lincoln died after being shot (the previous evening) by John Wilkes Booth.
April 16, 1912: Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.
April 17, 1949: Twenty six Irish counties officially left the British Commonwealth, ushering in the Republic of Ireland.
April 19, 1839: The Treaty of London established Belgium as a kingdom.
April 20, 1534: Jacques Cartier began his voyage, during which he discovered Canada and Labrador.
April 22, 1519: Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés established a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico.
April 23, 1914: The first baseball game at Wrigley Field took place in Weeghman Park in Chicago.
April 24, 1704: The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The News-Letter, was published in Boston, Massachusetts.
April 26, 1607: English colonists made landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
April 27, 1667: John Milton, who was blind and impoverished at this time, sold the copyright of "Paradise Lost" for only £10.
April 28, 1788: Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.
April 29, 1770: James Cook arrived at Botany Bay, Australia.
April 30, 1789: George Washington took oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.
