American pioneer Ezra Meeker with Buffalo Bill and crowd in Tenino, Washington state
April 1, 1957, the “infamous” Swiss Spaghetti Harvest Hoax was perpetrated upon an unsuspecting British television audience.
From the “Museum of Hoaxes” website: On April 1, 1957 the British news show Panorama broadcast a three-minute segment about a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. The success of the crop was attributed both to an unusually mild winter & to the “virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.” The audience heard Richard Dimbleby, the show’s highly respected anchor, discussing the details of the spaghetti crop as they watched video footage of a Swiss family pulling pasta off spaghetti trees & placing it into baskets. The segment concluded with the assurance that, “For those who love this dish, there’s nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti.”
The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest Hoax generated an enormous response. Hundreds of people phoned the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this query the BBC diplomatically replied, “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce & hope for the best.”
To this day the Panorama broadcast remains one of the most famous & popular April Fool’s Day hoaxes of all time. It is also believed to be the first time the medium of television was used to stage an April Fool’s Day hoax.
Warehouse of steel floats for anti-submarine nets, 1953
A Nazca skull with long braids
Hair still attached to its own skull, measures 2800 mm (2.80m.) in length, possibly belonged to a priestess of approximately 50 years and whose age is 2,200 years (200 BC).
The hair is made up of two bows wrapped in fine ropes made of the same hair, they are in a circular way around each portion of hair. Located in National Museum of the Archaeology, Anthropology, and History (Archeology Museum UNT), Trujillo, Peru
1st Lt. Ralph Calef is undoubtedly the only soldier at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, who shot at Japanese fighters with a bow and arrow.
When the war started, Calef was a supply sergeant stationed at Camp Malacola, near Hicham Field, during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“I was in charge of quarters that Sunday morning. I had a .45 pistol strapped on my side with no shells. They didn’t trust us with ammunition,” Calef said.
So he ran back to his off-base apartment and got his bow and 12 hunting arrows.
“I watched the first Japanese plane come in so low its wheels almost touched the top of the trees,” he said. “I waited for the second plane and let my arrow fly right into his windshield.
“A few moments later, a Japanese fighter crashed down the street, but my major wouldn’t allow me to go find the plane for a couple of days. When I got there, it was hard to tell if it was the one I shot at because the cockpit plexiglass was smashed out.”
After Pearl Harbor, Calef went to officers’ training and served in the 7th Army in Europe. He was in the thick of the fighting in the North African Campaign, Sicilian Campaign, Southern Italian Campaign, Northern Italian Campaign, Southern France Campaign and German Campaign. He received five campaign stars, two Purple Hearts, the Asiatic Pacific Ribbon, Soldier’s Medal and American Defense Ribbon.