--- title: How One of History's Best April Fools' Day Pranks Was Debunked description: Don't believe everything you read canonical: https://time.com/3757913/history-april-fools-day/ author: Jennifer Latson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-01T10:00:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:04:53.044Z article:section: History og:title: How One of History's Best April Fools' Day Pranks Was Debunked og:description: Don't believe everything you read og:url: https://time.com/3757913/history-april-fools-day/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4195b223698180a0/69878536524fc0c913ded162/daedalus.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: daedalus og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How One of History's Best April Fools' Day Pranks Was Debunked twitter:description: Don't believe everything you read twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4195b223698180a0/69878536524fc0c913ded162/daedalus.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How One of History's Best April Fools’ Day Pranks Was Debunked by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Apr 1, 2015 10:00 AM UTC  From TIME's April 23, 1934, debunking of the lung-powered flight hoax From TIME's April 23, 1934, debunking of the lung-powered flight hoaxTIME by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Apr 1, 2015 10:00 AM UTC Although the exact origin of April Fools’ Day is uncertain, playing springtime pranks is a nearly universal custom, adopted around the globe and throughout history — perhaps, [some have suggested](http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-fools-tradition-popularized), beginning with the Roman festival of Hilaria, which was celebrated by dressing up in disguise. Over the past century, April 1 hijinks have become a mainstay of Western culture. One of the more legendary jokes came in 1934, when a German news magazine published [a photo](http://hoaxes.org/af%5Fdatabase/permalink/man%5Fflies%5Fby%5Fown%5Flung%5Fpower) of a man on skis, propelling himself into the air by blowing into a straw to turn a pair of rotors. Many American newspapers were taken in by the hoax, including the New York _Times_, which ran the photo with [the caption](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,748969,00.html), “Man flies on his own power for the first time in history.” TIME, however, was not fooled, as an article from later that month made clear: --- > “” --- But it wasn’t long before the kind of flight news that would have once been an obvious hoax began to seem feasible: in 1937, faux-pilot Koycher showed up [again](http://time.com/vault/issue/1937-02-08/page/58/) in the pages of TIME, but as a counterexample. “Three years ago, like many another newspaper, the New York Times carried an astonishing picture of a man on skis propelling himself off the ground by puffing into a pair of rotors. It turned out to be an April Fooler concocted by the editors of Germany’s _Berliner Illustrirte_ _Zeitung_,” TIME noted. “Last week, however, the feat which Icarus and Leonardo da Vinci made famous by failure was finally achieved. In Milan, where Leonardo experimented with flapping wings 400 years ago, Pilot Vittorio Bonomi took off, flew five-eighths of a mile in a bicycle plane worked only by his own strength.” **_Read TIME’s 1934 debunking of the lung-powered flight, here in the TIME Vault_**: [Daedalus](http://time.com/vault/issue/1934-04-23/page/67/) ### PHOTOS: Beautiful Long Exposures of Airplanes at Night  College Point Blvd., College Point, Queens, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  36th Ave., Flushing, Queens, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  Hermon MacNeil Park, College Point, Queens, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME  Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME  Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME  Queens Botanical Garden, Flushing, Queens, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  Flushing, N.Y., July 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  Ocean Blvd., Atlantic Beach, N.Y., July 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME  Spray View Ave., Far Rockaway, N.Y., July 2014. 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