5) Metric Time - 1975: On Australia's popular show, This Day Tonight, it was announced that the country would be switching to "metric time." In this new system, there would be 100 seconds in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour, and 20 hours in a day. Seconds would now be referred to as millidays, minutes were centidays, and hours decidays. The Adelaide town hall even sported a fancy, new "metric clock." This Day Tonight received tons of calls from angry viewers who fell for the joke. One particularly frustrated viewer wanted to know how to change his brand-new digital clock to metric time!
4) The 26 Day Marathon - 1981: "The Daily Mail ran a story about an unfortunate Japanese long-distance runner, Kimo Nakajimi, who had entered the London Marathon but, on account of a translation error, thought that he had to run for 26 days, not 26 miles. Reportedly Nakajimi was now somewhere out on the roads of England, still running, determined to finish the race. Various people had spotted him, though they were unable to flag him down. The translation error was attributed to Timothy Bryant, an import director, who said, "I translated the rules and sent them off to him. But I have only been learning Japanese for two years, and I must have made a mistake. He seems to be taking this marathon to be something like the very long races they have over there.'" - museumofhoaxes.com
3) Swedish Colour TV - 1962: In 1962, in Sweden, there was only one TV channel and that channel was in black and white. The station's technical guy, Kjell Stennson, appeared on the evening news and announced that because of new technology, the channel would now be shown in colour. All the viewers had to do was put a nylon stocking over their television sets! Thousands of people fell for the joke. Sweden didn't get colour TV until 1970.
2) Dutch Elm Disease Infects Red-Heads - 1973: "BBC Radio broadcast an interview with an elderly academic, Dr. Clothier, who discoursed on the government's efforts to stop the spread of Dutch Elm Disease. Dr. Clothier described some startling discoveries that had been made about the tree disease. For instance, he referred to the research of Dr. Emily Lang of the London School of Pathological and Environmental Medicine. Dr. Lang had apparently found that exposure to Dutch Elm Disease immunized people to the common cold. Unfortunately, there was a side effect. Exposure to the disease also caused red hair to turn yellow and eventually fall out. This was attributed to a similarity between the blood count of redheads and the soil conditions in which affected trees grew. Therefore, redheads were advised to stay away from forests for the foreseeable future. Dr. Clothier was in reality the comedian Spike Milligan." - museumofhoaxes.come
1) Swiss Spaghetti Crop - 1957: "The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, 'place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.'" - museumofhoaxes.com