49 Fun Facts About Harvard

In what year was Harvard, the oldest US institution of higher learning, founded?

1636 is the founding year, sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth; it was named Harvard College in 1639 in honour of the clergyman whose bequest kept it alive.

Which body voted the £400 that founded the college?

The colony's Great and General Court, the Massachusetts Bay legislature, voted the £400 at a session that opened on 8 September and was adjourned to 28 October, the date Harvard treats as its birthday.

Besides half his estate, what did John Harvard bequeath to the college in 1638?

His library of some 400 volumes, together with half his estate, made the Charlestown minister the college's first major benefactor; it was renamed Harvard College in his honour in 1639.

What single Latin word appears on the three open books of Harvard's shield?

Veritas, Latin for 'truth', was sketched on the books in a 1643 design that was forgotten until President Josiah Quincy rediscovered it in 1836; the 1650 charter seal instead read 'In Christi Gloriam'.

Which of these is Harvard's official school color?

Its sports teams take the name Harvard Crimson and compete in the Ivy League without athletic scholarships.

As of 2024, how many US presidents had been Harvard alumni, the most for any university?

Eight presidents attended, from John Adams and John Quincy Adams through Rutherford B. Hayes and both Roosevelts to George W. Bush, counting law- and business-school graduates; Yale is next with five.

Roughly how large was Harvard's endowment, the world's biggest university fund, as of 2023?

$51 billion, roughly $50.7 billion at the close of fiscal 2023, was more than the entire endowment of any other university; Yale's stood at about $41 billion.

Harvard's oldest surviving building, completed in 1720, is which one on Harvard Yard?

Massachusetts Hall, finished in 1720, housed Continental troops during the Siege of Boston; the president's offices occupy its lower floors and a handful of freshmen live on the top floor.

Which library, the anchor of the world's largest academic library system, sits in Harvard Yard?

Widener Library, opened in 1915, anchors a system of more than 20 million items across dozens of libraries; its stacks alone hold several million volumes.

Harvard's great library is a memorial to a 1907 graduate who died in what event?

The sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 killed the 27-year-old book collector, class of 1907; his mother Eleanor, who survived, funded the library in his name, and the swimming-test story is campus legend.

The main library's stacks hold about 3.5 million books along roughly how much shelving?

57 miles of shelving run through the building's ten levels of stacks, which hold roughly 3.5 million volumes; the stacks were built as a self-supporting steel structure.

Who sculpted the John Harvard statue that stands in Harvard Yard?

Daniel Chester French, who had already made Concord's Minute Man, completed the bronze in 1884 and later created the seated Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.

With no likeness of John Harvard surviving, whose face inspired the sculptor of his statue?

A student named Sherman Hoar, class of 1882, sat for the face; the inscription 'John Harvard, Founder, 1638' underpins the tour-guide routine about the 'statue of three lies'.

What do tourists do to the John Harvard statue in the mistaken belief that it is a student tradition?

Rub the toe of his left shoe for luck, visitors are told, and the constant handling has polished that one spot of bronze to a bright gold.

After a 1968 rivalry game ended 29–29, the student newspaper ran which famous headline?

'Harvard Beats Yale, 29–29' was the student paper's headline after Harvard scored 16 points in the final minute to salvage the draw; it later titled a 2008 documentary.

During the 1982 rivalry game, a weather balloon inflated at midfield bearing the letters of which school?

MIT students had buried the balloon under the turf beforehand; inflated from below, it rose bearing the letters 'MIT' and grew until it burst, spraying powder over the field.

Harvard's undergraduate humor magazine, founded in 1876, is called what?

The Lampoon counts Conan O'Brien, John Updike and Robert Benchley among its alumni and is housed in a mock-Flemish castle near Harvard Square.

In 1953 the student newspaper stole the humor magazine's ibis and gave it to which government?

The Soviet Union was the recipient: the newspaper's editors handed the ibis to Soviet diplomats as a 'gift' from Harvard's students, and the magazine had to retrieve its bird; the two publications have feuded for generations.

Harvard's Memorial Hall was built to honour Harvard men who died in which war?

The Civil War dead of the Union side are honoured in Memorial Hall, the Victorian Gothic pile completed in 1878; Sanders Theatre and Annenberg Hall, the freshman dining hall, sit inside it.

Hasty Pudding Theatricals, formed in 1795, holds what distinction?

Oldest theatrical organization in the US is the Pudding's claim, with only two older in the world; its cast was all-male, often in drag, until women joined in 2018.

The Hasty Pudding has named a Woman of the Year since 1951 and a Man of the Year since which year?

1967 saw the first Man of the Year, Bob Hope, sixteen years after Gertrude Lawrence became the first Woman of the Year; honourees are 'roasted' and receive a brass pudding pot.

Mark Zuckerberg launched 'TheFacebook' from his Harvard dorm on which date?

4 February 2004 was launch day for thefacebook.com, run from his room in Kirkland House; months earlier his Facemash site had landed him in front of the Administrative Board.

Zuckerberg's earlier site Facemash asked users to do what?

Rate students' attractiveness was the game: Facemash paired photos lifted from house 'facebooks' and asked who was hotter, drawing hundreds of visitors within hours before Harvard shut it down.

Which 2010 film dramatised the founding of Facebook at Harvard?

The Social Network, directed by David Fincher from Aaron Sorkin's script, could not film on campus because Harvard refused permission, so Johns Hopkins and other colleges stood in.

Which 1970 film pairs a wealthy Harvard hockey player with a dying music student?

Love Story, adapted by Erich Segal from his own novel, stars Ryan O'Neal as Oliver Barrett IV and Ali MacGraw as Jenny Cavilleri; its famous line is 'Love means never having to say you're sorry'.

Who became Harvard's first female president in 2007?

Drew Gilpin Faust, a historian of the American South, became the university's 28th president after serving as the first dean of its institute for advanced study.

Which Harvard president resigned in January 2024 after the shortest tenure in its history?

Claudine Gay stepped down on 2 January 2024, six months and a day after taking office, amid plagiarism allegations and criticism of her congressional testimony; Provost Alan Garber took over as interim president.

For how many years was Charles William Eliot, who modernised Harvard, its president?

40 years, from 1869 to 1909, made Eliot the longest-serving president; a chemist who had studied in Germany, he introduced the elective system and oversaw Harvard's first PhDs in 1873.

Who in 1708 became the first Harvard president who was not also a clergyman?

John Leverett, a lawyer and judge, led the college from 1708 to 1724; every earlier head, including Increase Mather, had been a minister.

Harvard Law School, founded in 1817, was made possible by a 1779 bequest from whom?

Isaac Royall Jr., a Medford slaveholder whose will endowed Harvard's first law professorship, made the school possible; it has operated continuously for longer than any other US law school.

In which Boston district have Harvard Medical School and its teaching hospitals sat since 1906?

Longwood, the Longwood Medical Area, has housed the medical school's marble quadrangle since 1906, beside teaching hospitals such as Brigham and Women's and Boston Children's.

Harvard's Graduate School of Public Administration was later renamed for which president?

John F. Kennedy, the 1940 graduate assassinated in 1963, gave his name to the school in 1966; it had opened in 1936 as the Graduate School of Public Administration.

Harvard Business School and Harvard Stadium sit in which Boston neighbourhood?

Allston, across the Charles River from Cambridge, holds the business school, Harvard Stadium and the Science and Engineering Complex that opened there in 2021.

How many residential houses accommodate Harvard upperclassmen?

Twelve houses take sophomores, juniors and seniors: nine near the Charles River and three on the Quadrangle, each with its own dining hall, library and resident faculty deans.

The Blaschka Glass Flowers are a celebrated exhibit at which Harvard institution?

The Museum of Natural History displays the Ware Collection of some 4,300 glass models, made in Dresden by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka between 1887 and 1936.

Harvard's first intercollegiate ice hockey game, in 1898, was a 6–0 loss to which school?

Brown beat Harvard 6–0 on 19 January 1898, in what is often called the first intercollegiate ice hockey game played in the United States.

Every two years, Harvard and Yale field a combined track team against which pair of universities?

Oxford and Cambridge have met the combined Harvard–Yale squad since 1899, a series billed as the oldest continuing international amateur athletics competition in the world.

Which Harvard women's team won an NCAA Division I national championship in 1990?

Lacrosse brought the title, with a win over Maryland in the 1990 final; men's ice hockey had won the school's first Division I team title the year before.

Who in 1895 became the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard?

W. E. B. Du Bois earned his doctorate in history in 1895, went on to co-found the NAACP in 1909 and wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk'.

Which future US president was the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review?

Barack Obama was elected president of the Law Review in 1990; the attention led to a publishing contract that became 'Dreams from My Father'.

Which 1904 Radcliffe graduate was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts?

Helen Keller graduated cum laude in 1904, with Anne Sullivan spelling lectures into her hand, and published 'The Story of My Life' while an undergraduate in 1903.

The grassy centre of Harvard Yard where commencement is held is known as what?

Tercentenary Theatre takes its name from the 1936 tercentenary celebrations; bounded by the main library, Memorial Church, University Hall and Sever Hall, it fills with chairs each commencement.

Which religious movement originally shaped Harvard's undergraduate college?

Puritanism drove the founding: the Massachusetts Bay colonists wanted an educated Congregational clergy, and training ministers was the college's early mission before the curriculum was gradually secularised in the 18th century.

What was Harvard's inadequate pre-1915 library, completed in 1841, called?

Gore Hall, a Gothic Revival building named for governor Christopher Gore, served as the library until it was demolished in 1913 to make way for its far larger replacement.

Who was Harvard's first headmaster, taking office in 1637?

Nathaniel Eaton, the college's first master, was dismissed in 1639 after a trial for beating an usher and starving students; Henry Dunster then became the first to hold the title president.

As of 2024, how many varsity teams did Harvard field, the most of any US college?

42 varsity teams gave Harvard the largest Division I athletics programme in the country; like the other Ivy League schools it offers no athletic scholarships.

Which former Harvard fencing coach was at the centre of a 2020 bribes-for-admission scandal?

Peter Brand was fired in 2019 and indicted in 2020 over payments from a parent whose two sons joined the team; a federal jury acquitted both men in 2024.

Which of the Harvard Art Museums was formerly known as the Germanic Museum?

Busch-Reisinger was the name adopted in 1950 for the Germanic Museum, founded in 1903; it covers central and northern European art, while the Fogg focuses on Western art and the Sackler on Asian, Mediterranean and Islamic art.

In which year did Radcliffe College formally merge into Harvard?

1999 brought the formal merger, after which the women's college became an institute for advanced study; Harvard had already run undergraduate women's admissions and housing for decades under 'non-merger merger' agreements.