April Fools' Day - 2 　　　　(1)

When did April Fool this custom start? According to a well-researched story of the origin of the day, it was started in 1545 by a rather unfortunate accident. A Norwegian scientist, Loof Lirpa, was staying in London, where he was trying to find the secret of how to fly.
The scientist was eccentric[1], but there was no doubt that he was clever. It seems that his experiments were successful: King Henry VIII received a letter from Mr. Lirpa, in which he announced that he had finally solved the secret of flight. He asked the king to be present at a demonstration flight at Westminster[2] on April 1.
So the king and the leading politicians of the day stood ouside the Palace of Westminster on April 1, and waited for Mr. Lirpa to come flying past. But nothing happened-- and it became the tradition afterwards to play tricks on people in the same way on this day.
However, evidence proved later that Loof Lirpa was not playing a trick: he was in fact telling the truth. He had learnt how to fly-- the reason that he didn't appear at Westminster was that his flying-machine had crashed into a tree, and he had been killed.
It was a tragedy for science. The scientist, unfortu-nately, was very secretive[3]. When he died, the secret died with him.