On this day in 1700, English pranksters begin popularizing the annual tradition of April Fools' Day by playing practical jokes on each other. Although the day, also called All Fools' Day, has been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, its exact origins remain a mystery. Some historians speculate that April Fools' Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. These included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as "poisson d'avril" (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.
On this day in 1946, an undersea earthquake off the Alaskan coast triggers a massive tsunami that kills 159 people in Hawaii.
On this day in 1945, after suffering the loss of 116 planes and damage to three aircraft carriers, 50,000 U.S. combat troops of the 10th Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner Jr., land on the southwest coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa, 350 miles south of Kyushu, the southern main island of Japan.
Ignoring the taunts of fellow miners who say he will only find his own tombstone, prospector Edward Schieffelin begins his search for silver in the area of present-day southern Arizona. Later that year, Schieffelin was not only alive and well, but he had found one of the richest silver veins in the West. He named it the Tombstone Lode.
In Germany, Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years in prison for leading the Nazis' unsuccessful "Beer Hall Putsch" in the German state of Bavaria.
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