HAPPY EASTER TO ALL THE READERS!
The 1st of April 2018, when Easter and April Fool’s day falls on the same day.
But it’s not just these 2 celebrations but one more that falls on this day.
On Sunday you could have your pranks and eat your chocolate too — as long you remembered to wind the clock back by one hour.
In a never-before coincidence, daylight saving, Easter and April Fools’ Day are all on the same day.
According to Dr Stephen Woodcock, a mathematician at the University of Technology Sydney, this has never happened before — but it will happen again and again.
Easter, daylight saving and April Fools’ Day will coincide in 11 years (2029) and 11 years after that (2040), but not again until 2108.
“It’s a slightly strange quirk, because it hasn’t ever happened before – yet it will happen again in 11 years time, and again 11 years after that. And then it won’t happen again for another 70 years,” Dr Woodcock says.
“There would have been earlier ones, of course, had daylight savings been introduced earlier. Apart from a few years during the two World Wars, the states that use daylight savings have only done so for around 50 years.”
According to the Australian government website on time zones, daylight saving is the practice of advancing clocks one hour during the warmer months of the year. It is observed in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory.
Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia stubbornly don’t choose to join in.
Daylight saving begins at 2 am on the first Sunday in October, when clocks are put forward one hour. It ends at 2 am (which is 3 am daylight saving time) on the first Sunday in April, when clocks are put back one hour.
Easter Sunday falls between March 22 and April 25 and is always on the Sunday after the first full moon after the March equinox, when day and night are of equal length.
This year, the equinox was March 21. The first full moon after the equinox arrives a few minutes before midnight Saturday, March 31, making April 1 Easter Sunday.
April Fools’ Day, less known as All Fools’ Day, is celebrated every year on April 1 by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. The victims are called April fools.
According to Wikipedia, that trusted font of all knowledge, it was Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, written in the 1300’s, who made the first recorded link between April 1 and foolishness.
But don’t believe everything you read – at least not on April Fools’ Day – because according to Stephanie Trigg, a Melbourne professor and Chaucer expert, that story may well be just another hoax.
“There’s a strong suggestion that Chaucer was the first to make the connection between St Valentine and love,” Professor Trigg says.
“But there’s nothing there about the April Fools’ tradition.”
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