April Fool’s Day

I was interested to learn the origin of April Fool’s Day and thought I would share it here. In the early centuries, the new year used to be celebrated for eight days, starting on March 25 and culminating on April 1. Sometime around the middle of the 16th century, France’s King Charles IX changed to a calendar that began on January1. Many folks did not catch up with the new tradition for many years, and continued to celebrate April 1st as New Year’s Day. These people came to be known as April Fools, and were the subject of ridicule and practical jokes. The tradition expanded to other countries and celebrations were even developed to commemorate the fun day.

Intel always provides great April Fool’s fun in the form of a crazy intranet with ridiculous stories, illustrations and links. Today was no different as we perused articles about the president leaving the company to join a rock band, an error in our bonus calculation requiring all employees to give the money back, soaring stock price, and even poking fun at our competitors (Oh NO!). All will be back to normal on Monday morning.