Can You Ace This Quiz on Historic Universities?

The first live college sports mascot was none other than Handsome Dan, the lovable bulldog owned by a member of Yale’s class of 1892. The lasting tradition has seen 19 generations of Handsome Dan. The newest of these mascots, Handsome Dan XIX, was born on January 2, 2021. He is an Olde English Bulldogge, a breed similar to the English Bulldog, and the “nephew” of his predecessor.

Established in 1636 and officially chartered in 1650, Harvard University is America's oldest institution of higher education. Second on the list is the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, which was chartered in 1693. The university was named after King William III and Queen Mary II of England, who signed the official charter.

Queen's University Belfast in Ireland and Queen's University at Kingston in Ontario, Canada, were both named for England's Queen Victoria. The former, which received its charter from the queen in 1845, is one of Northern Ireland's top universities and a member of the Russell Group of research schools. The latter is one of the oldest universities in Canada, and was established in 1841 by the country's Presbyterian Church.

Although all four of these universities are included among the so-called "ancient universities" of Scotland, St. Andrews is the country's oldest, having been founded in 1413. (St. Andrews is where England's Prince William met his now-wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.) The University of Glasgow came next, in 1451, followed by the University of Aberdeen in 1495 and the University of Edinburgh in 1583.

Did you know that four medical schools in the United States were founded in the 18th century? While impressive, that is nowhere near as old as some in Italy, which date back to the 11th and 12th centuries. The oldest in the U.S. is the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Also known as Penn Med, it was founded in Philadelphia in 1765. Now home to several clinical centers, Penn Med is still ranked among the nation's top medical research facilities.

Skull and Bones is a secret society for senior students at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The society was established in 1832, and 15 new members are chosen each spring. The group reportedly meets twice a week at their clubhouse, fittingly known as "The Tomb." Formerly a males-only club, they have welcomed women into their midst since 1992. Members are often selected from socially prominent families, and the society can name three U.S. Presidents among its ranks: William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

No, Transylvania University is not in the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe. The school, which was founded in 1780, is located in Kentucky’s famous Bluegrass region. The word “transylvania” is Latin for “across the woods,” and the institution was named more than a century before Bram Stoker set his vampire novel "Dracula" in what later became part of central Romania. The name “Transylvania” was well known in the region years before the American school came along — there was a short-lived Transylvania Colony established in 1775, as well as a Transylvania Land Company. While the school doesn’t have anything to do with vampires, they’re playful about the association: Their mascot is a big-eared bat.

"Seven Sisters" was the name given to a group of seven elite women's colleges in the Northeast United States in the early 20th century. Each of the schools was founded to give women the kind of educational opportunities that were previously available only to men; many other prestigious institutions, including the Ivies, didn't become coeducational until the 1960s and '70s. The Seven Sisters — which included Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard — aimed to help close that gap. They were sister schools to each other, but also to colleges that historically admitted mostly men. Barnard, for example, is affiliated with Columbia University, while Radcliffe was affiliated with Harvard. (The latter two have since merged.) Vassar became coed in 1969, but five of the Seven Sisters are still women's colleges.

There are 107 colleges in the United States that are identified by the Department of Education as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Of those 107 schools, 15 are located in Alabama — more than any other state. These institutions are defined by law as “any historically black college established prior to 1964, whose principal mission was, and is, the education of Black Americans.” In Alabama, these schools include Stillman College, Selma University, Alabama State University, and Tuskegee University, whose first president was Booker T. Washington. Roughly 20 million students are currently enrolled in HBCUs across the country today.

Columbia University is one of the oldest higher-learning institutions in the United States, founded in 1754 by royal charter of King George II of England. Because of its royal affiliation, the school was originally named King's College. Somewhat ironically, however, it helped to educate and then elevate some of the leaders of the American Revolution, including John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. In the 1780s, the "King's" name was scrapped in favor of Columbia, a nod to the toponym for the original 13 colonies.

Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is one of the most prestigious research universities in the world. Charles Darwin studied at Cambridge’s Christ College; Stephen Hawking attended Trinity Hall Cambridge; and Charles, Prince of Wales, attended Trinity College Cambridge. Author J.R.R. Tolkien, however, attended a different prestigious English institution — Oxford University.

Trinity College was founded in 1592 by a royal charter from Queen Elizabeth I. Initially, the institution was set to be the first of many constituent colleges of the University of Dublin; however, no other colleges were established, so the two names are interchangeable with each other. Home to the world-famous Book of Kells, Trinity is widely considered the best university in Ireland.

The John Harvard statue is one of the best-known landmarks on Harvard's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Located in the Yard, the statue is nicknamed the "Statue of Three Lies" because of three specific inaccuracies: First, the statue isn’t actually a likeness of John Harvard; it is of Sherman Hoar, a man who sat in as a head model for Harvard. Second, the date on the statue is incorrect. The inscription states that Harvard was founded in 1638, but it was actually founded in 1636. The final lie on the statue is the term “founder” — John Harvard was not the founder of Harvard University, but he was its first major benefactor.

The University of Al-Karaouine was founded as a mosque in Fez, Morocco, in 859, more than 200 years before the University of Bologna in Italy became Europe's first institution of higher learning. The Moroccan school was founded by Fatima al-Fihri, who funded the construction of a mosque with an associated school, known as a madrasa. Over the centuries, the madrasa expanded into a full-fledged university.

Harvard was founded way back in the 1630s in Boston, a center of political power in the early United States. So it makes sense that the first President with a college degree, John Adams, was a graduate of the school. Since then, Harvard has produced an additional seven U.S. Presidents: John Quincy Adams, both Roosevelts, John F. Kennedy, Rutherford B. Hayes (who went to Harvard Law School), George W. Bush (an alumnus of Harvard Business School), and Barack Obama (another Harvard Law grad).

The University of Pennsylvania wasn't always intended to be a university. In fact, it was originally going to be a charity school that doubled as a house of worship. But after the project went way over budget and construction was ultimately abandoned, Benjamin Franklin proposed that Philadelphia needed an institution of higher learning. A group of trustees banded together with Franklin to purchase the building and opened its doors shortly after. Franklin himself served as the school's first president until 1755 and remained a trustee until his death in 1790.

The formal name of the Sorbonne was the University of Paris; its shorter metonym came from the theological College of Sorbonne, which was established at the university in the 13th century by theologian Robert de Sorbon. Renowned for its excellence in both science and the arts, the university was active until 1970, when it was divided into more than a dozen autonomous universities — two of which merged to form the modern Sorbonne University in 2018.

What would become one of the greatest American pastimes originated when Rutgers University played New Jersey University (later renamed Princeton) on November 6, 1869. The game was held in New Brunswick, New Jersey, with a crowd of around 100 spectators. The game looked very different from the college football of today. It was more like European football (U.S. soccer), where players kicked the ball using their feet, but were also allowed to bat the ball with the rest of their body, including their hands. Rutgers won the game with a score of six to four.

Established in 1088, the University of Bologna is the oldest continuously operating university in Europe and one of the most famous higher-learning institutions in the world. Its early studies were in canon and civil law, attracting students from all over Europe. Around 1200, more disciplines were established at the school, including medicine and philosophy, and Bologna became a model for modern universities around the world.

Named after an entrepreneur and philanthropist, Johns Hopkins was founded as the nation’s first research university by Daniel Coit Gilman in 1876. The university claims 29 Nobel laureates, two Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, and one Pulitzer Prize winner, along with many other distinguished awards. Today, Johns Hopkins is the leading U.S. academic institution in total research and development spending, ranking first in higher-education research spending for more than four decades.

The Ivy League is made up of eight of the most prestigious schools in the United States: Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. The "Ivy League" moniker was coined in 1954, when the Division I NCAA athletic conference was formed, and it originally applied to sports and athletics. Except for Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the schools are also colonial colleges, or colleges formed before the American Revolution.

Teaching has existed in some form at Oxford since 1096, making it the first university in England and the English-speaking world. From its earliest days, the institution has been known for its spirited scientific and religious debates, and today it is consistently ranked among the world’s top universities.

The United States Military Academy, better known as West Point, is among the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the country. Two U.S. Presidents attended West Point: Civil War general and 18th President Ulysses S. Grant was a graduate of the class of 1843, and World War II general and 34th President Dwight D. Eisenhower graduated as part of the class of 1915.