An interactive cultural timeline

1st Apr. : April Fool's Day

Make a fool of others by telling huge lies, the taller the better.

1st Apr. : April Fool's Day

"Freaky"! Photo Terri Kahrs (CC BY-NC-ND).
Collection of smileys. Photo Ged Carroll (CC BY).

A day of jokes and tricks. You have to play the joke before 12 o’clock midday, otherwise the joke is on you.

For Christians Easter is the celebration of the resurrection or rising of Jesus Christ who came back from the Realm of Death after dying on a cross on Good Friday. Easter is celebrated on the night between Saturday and Sunday. It comes at the end of a period of prayer and fasting of 40 days starting on Ash Wednesday called Lent. Churches are beautifully decorated with flowers. White lilies are placed on the altar and also on the graves in cemitary.

British Easter customs include egg rolling, egg-hunting, performing Pace Egg plays, Morris dancing and displaying Easter bunny figures everywhere. Many of these customs are of pagan preChristian origin.
22nd Apr. : Earth Day

A day to honour and cherish Mother Earth.

22nd Apr. : Earth Day

Earth day poster. Photo Travis Morgan (CC BY-NC-ND).
You have the power. Photo Travis Morgan (CC BY-NC-ND).
The Empire state building all gree for Earth day. Photo Andrew Dallos (CC BY-NC-ND).

Earth Day is celebrated each year on the first day of spring, April 22nd, it is meant to inspire awareness and appreciation for the natural environment that our home planet Earth provides. It originated in California in 1970 and is now celebrated in many countries of the world as International Mother Earth Day.
Spring Bank Holiday Weekend : Gloucester Cheese-rolling

Groups of people run down a steep hill after a large round cheese, they fall down, roll and tumble and no one catches the cheese.

Spring Bank Holiday Weekend : Gloucester Cheese-rolling

Judge and cheese maestro. Photo Ariane Colebrander (CC BY-NC).
Creative contestants. Photo Ariane Colebrander (CC BY-NC).
Cheese rolling. Photo Kim Holland (CC BY-NC).

Britain is known for eccentric and silly traditions that people enjoy with good humour. The Gloucester Cheese race is one of the nuttiest (and dangerous) of many nonsensical but fun rituals. Local youngsters and even a number of people from abroad take part in a chase down Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, trying to catch a wheel of Gloucester Double cheese.

As the grass-covered hill is very steep and slippery especially in rainy weather rain, everyone trips and rolls head over heels to the bottom of the hill where helpers catch the runners, and sometimes have to carry them away on stretchers : injuries like sprained articulations or even broken bones are not rare but the risk is part of the excitement. The cheese is forgotten in the general fun.
12th - 13th Apr. : Songkran Water Festival in Thailand

The yearly country wide cleansing and purification of homes and temples ends up in a gigantic water fight.

12th - 13th Apr. : Songkran Water Festival in Thailand

The Songkran water splashing festival. Photo Takeaway (CC BY-SA).
Songkran Festival. Photo Wyndham Hollis (CC BY).

On Songkran, the old Thai new year, everything must be tidied and washed clean, old things no one needs are thrown out of houses and burned in order to avoid bad luck.

On the 13th offerings are made to statues of Buddha at the local temple called wat, then they are washed and carried in the street in procession. People along the roads throw more water on the statues, then go on dousing just everyone they can, it turns to a gigantic water fight leaving everyone in Thailand soaking wet.