The Great Moments in Travel History monthly feature for April is always published on April Fools’ Day, Aprilscherz in German, April vis in Dutch, poisson d’avril in French, and pesce d’aprile in Italian. The day is international in scope and millions of people the world over cannot seem to resist playing a harmless prank on their friends and neighbors.
The first English-language reference we can find is philosopher and writer John Aubrey’s 1686 reference to “Fooles holy day,” while we know through contemporary documentation that, on April 1, 1698, at least several individuals were tricked into going to the Tower of London to “see the Lions [being] washed.”
In Ireland, it was traditional to entrust the victim of a prank with an “mportant letter” to be given to a specific recipient. That person would read the letter, then ask the bearer of the letter to take it to someone else, and so on. The letter when opened contained four words, namely “send the fool further.”
April, the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, was the second month of the earliest Roman calendar, before Januarius and Februarius were added by King Numa Pompilius over 2,700 years ago.
The month is commonly associated with spring and rain, as in the saying, “April showers bring May flowers.” The month is also associated with two major religious holidays that result in one of the busiest travel seasons of the year, namely Passover and Easter, although either may occasionally show up in March.
April, or Aprilis in Latin, is the first month of the year to have 30 days. For a short time, however, it had only 29 days after a change by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, but it was increased back to 30 days by Julius Caesar at the time of his calendar reform.
Here’s what happened in Aprils past.
James Sith McDonnell, founder of the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, was born on April 9, 1899. The company he started later merged with the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas in order to better compete with arch-rival Boeing.
The Fairmont Hotel San Francisco was all set for opening day when, on April 18, 1906, the city suffered a devastating earthquake. Fires from the quake consumed much of the property and the hotel had to be largely rebuilt before opening exactly one year later. The Fairmont is still open today, and is a member of the Historic Hotels of America.
On April 24, 1909, Wilbur Wright brought along a photojournalist on a flight near Rome, Italy. The motion pictures taken in-flight were the first filmed on board an airplane aloft.
The Saint Paul Hotel, dubbed “St. Paul’s Million-Dollar Hotel,” opened on April 18, 1910, in St. Paul, Minnesota. The hotel is still in operation today and over the years has hosted such notable guests as Charles Lindbergh, Gene Autry, and John F. Kennedy.
The Loughead brothers flew their F-1 seaplane from Santa Barbara, California, to San Diego on April 12, 1918. The brothers would later go on to found Lockheed Martin.
On April 7, 1922, the first mid-air collision of airliners in history occurred near Picardie, France. A Havilland DH.18A, operated by Daimler Hire Ltd, collided with a Farman F.60 Goliath, operated by Compagnie des Grandes Express Aériens, resulting in the death of all seven occupants on board both aircraft.
On April 6, 1924, four Douglas World Cruisers (named Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, and Seattle) began the first flight around the world, departing from Sand Point near Seattle, Washington. The Seattle crashed in Alaska on April 30, and the Boston was irreparably damaged while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The New Orleans and the Chicago successfully completed the journey, arriving in Seattle on September 28, 1924.
Click here to continue to Page 2 – Deaths of Pan Am’s Juan Trippe and TWA’s Howard Hughes
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