Día de los Inocentes

December 28th, Dia de los Inocentes is an insane thing to become a holiday. No matter how you spin it, it's crazy that they turned this day into a holiday. Like seriously, a day that hundreds of innocent babies were murdered is now seen as a day for practical jokes? What the actual fuck. - Nolan
(also I hate using pictures that aren't my own, but I didn't get any pictures of practical jokes or babies being murdered so historical pics off google it is.)

Dia de los Inocentes stems from Día de los Santos Inocentes, meaning Holy Innocents’ Day. This Catholic festival, which has been marked in the church’s religious calendar since at least 485 AD, is a commemoration of one of the darkest events recorded in the bible; the murder of innocent children on the orders of King Herod. The book of Matthew tells of Herod’s barbarous command that all babies under the age of two in the Judean town of Bethlehem were put to death. This was prompted by a perceived threat posed to his rule by the prophesied rise of a King of the Jews. Herod had been alerted to the likely presence of this king in Bethlehem by the visits of the three magi to the newborn Jesus.

So now the question is how did a day of murdering babies turn into a day for practical jokes? The term inocente can, as with innocence in English, be used to either suggest a state of being spiritually innocent or of naivety. This double meaning results in the link that those who easily fall for the practical jokes and tricks of the day are themselves innocents. And so somehow Día de los Santos Inocentes was begun.