Beware! April Fool's Day is here!

It is hard to know, today, however, whether it is our readers who will be fooled or the author of this nostalgia piece.

We have put together a collection of April 1 photos from archives, but so many are missing vital details.

Potentially the first time television had ever been used to stage an April Fools’ joke, in 1957 the BBC presented images of women in Switzerland “picking” spaghetti from trees and bushes as part of their annual harvesting effort.

In 1993 a German radio stationed announced that the local council had determined that joggers could go no faster than six miles an hour through city parks in order not to frighten the squirrels.

Print can lend itself to some wonderful April Fool pranks - and some that can go wrong.

The Otago Daily times in Dunedin, New Zealand, was known for its front page April 1 editions.

There was still concern, horror and outrage when the rugby-made province opened its morning paper to discover that Carrisbrook, its main rugby stadium, had "accidentally" been dug up for work that was not supposed to start until after the world cup game coming to the city.

Dunedin had a large brewery. City water did not always taste great and, with the blessing of Speights' Brewery, people used to take fresh water from an outlet well.

When the Otago Daily times announced that there would be beer instead of water dispensed from the well, the newspaper had to put a call in to local radio stations explaining it was an April Fool's joke - and that drivers who had brought the city to a grid-locked standstill should go home - as there was no beer to be had.