Thursday, April 1, 2010

Johns Hopkins University Drops "S" in Deference to John Hopkins

I know I've been lax in posts to this blog, but I had to post this for today. In an elaborate April Fool's joke, Johns Hopkins University dropped the "s" in Johns Hopkins to be John Hopkins University. A frequent misidentification of the Baltimore university that was founded in 1876 three years after the death of philanthropist Johns Hopkins bequeathed $7 million dollars to establish the university that bears his name. His unusual first name Johns was his great-grandmother's middle name and he was named after her son, his grandfather, the first Johns Hopkins.

The university had been planning this prank for nearly a year and you can read about it in the Washington Post.