8. Sweden Was Convinced It Could View Black And White Television In Colour
This one is so simple it's genius. The hoax took place in Sweden on April Fool's Day, 1962. At the time, Sveriges Television was the only television channel in the whole of Sweden, and it was broadcast in black and white (one television channel can you imagine such a world?). On April 1st, Sveriges Television announced that a man named Kjell Stensson the station's technical genius had come up with a technique that would allow viewers to transform their black and white display into full, glorious colour. So what did they have to do? Well, according to Stensson (after going on a rather lengthy spiel about the prismatic nature of light and something called double slit interference) all you had to do was tape a pair of Nylon stockings over the screen. This would cause the light to bend a certain way and produce the appearance of colour. Not only that, but you were supposed to move your head back and forward in order to adjust to the new colour spectrum. Brilliant.
