The Dreadnought hoax was a practical joke pulled by Horace de Vere Cole in 1910. Cole tricked the Royal Navy into showing their flagship, the battleship HMS Dreadnought, to a fake delegation of Abyssinian royals. The hoax drew attention in Britain to the emergence of the Bloomsbury Group, among whom some of Cole's collaborators numbered. The hoax was a repeat of a similar impersonation that Cole and Adrian Stephen had organised while they were students at Cambridge University in 1905.
(l–r) Adrian Stephen, Robert Bowen Colthurst, Horace de Vere Cole, Leland Buxton and Lyulph "Drummer" Howard, in costume for the Sultan of Zanzibar hoax at Cambridge
Postcard published after the Cambridge Hoax
HMS Dreadnought at sea in 1906
The Dreadnought hoaxers in Abyssinian costume
A practical joke or prank is a trick played on people or people, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort. The perpetrator of a practical joke is called a "practical joker" or "prankster". Other terms for practical jokes include gag, rib, jape, or shenanigan. Some countries in western nations make it tradition to carry out pranks on April Fools' Day and Mischief Night.
Practical joke involving completely blocking someone's doorway with phone books
A life-sized cardboard cutout of Pope Francis peeks through an office window, giving off the illusion that the supreme pontiff is inside staring back at the viewer
Bicycles hanging high as the result of a student prank in Lund, Sweden
A statue of the Duke of Wellington in front of the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, which is famous for having had a traffic cone repeatedly placed on its head since the 1980s.
