April 1 - April Fool's Day!

How was your April Fool's Day? Did you survive the day? Were you the pranker, or the pranked? Did you abstain from the event entirely?

Our "pranks" were fairly mild (though still entertaining) at the library. We turned some books upside down:

 

And left a surprise for unsuspecting book returners!

 

If you are a lover of pranks, check out some of these ideas:

- Design your own word-scramble sheet where most of the letters don't form real words
- Plug in a wireless mouse to a co-worker's computer, then every now and then wiggle it about to freak them out
- Tell the kids to find Easter Eggs you didn't hide (only for the slightly mean-at-heart)
- Reverse everything in a room, see how long it takes people to notice (we did this to my high school Social teacher)
- If you're feeling especially crafty, make a list of pranks you intend to do where your "victim" will find it, then don't do any of the pranks, leaving them constantly wondering when you will strike.

Today is also National Fun at Work Day, Poetry & the Creative Mind Day, and Reading is Funny Day!

 

Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:

 

- The first United Empire Loyalists - 1124 refugees from New England - arrived in Halifax in 1776. Another 40 000 followed them to Nova Scotia and Quebec, resulting in the formation of New Brunswick and Upper Canada.

- The passenger ship Atlantic, en route to Halifax, crashed into Meagher's Rock and sank in 1873

- Alexander Edmund Davie was sworn in as BC's 8th Premier in 1887

- The Census recorded the population of Canada as 5 371 315 in 1901

- The Royal Canadian Air Force was established in 1924

- Tobie Steinhouse, printmaker and painter, was born in Montreal in 1925

- Cliff Lumsdon, the long-distance swimmer first to conquer the Juan de Fuca Strait, was born in Toronto in 1931

- The last of the wartime restrictions on Japanese-Canadians was lifted in 1949, allowing them to move anywhere in Canada. Also in 1949, Joseph Roberts Smallwood was appointed the first Premier of Newfoundland

- The St. Lawrence Seaway was opened to commercial shipping in 1959, providing transportation for ocean-going vessels from Lake Superior to Montreal

- The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission was formed under the Broadcasting Act in 1968

- Weather offices in Canada first used Celsius to report temperatures in 1975. On September 1st, metric was first used for rainfall and snowfall

- The CRTC was given regulatory power over telecommunications in 1976

- Ballet dancer and choreographer Erik Bruhn died in Toronto in 1986

- The new territory of Nunavut was declared in 1999 as part of Canada's first territorial changes since Newfoundland joined in 1949

 

Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!