MIT pranks: From giant torpedoes to stolen police cars. - Slate Magazine

MIT pranks: From giant torpedoes to stolen police cars. - Slate Magazine


While writing my novel The Technologists, a thriller about the first students at MIT, I looked for early recorded pranks to incorporate into my story. The history of hacks published by MIT Press, Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT, reaches back to an incident in the 1870s in which students sprinkled iodide of nitrogen over the grounds of a military drill, causing explosions under classmates' boots. But as something of a purist about firsts, I sought out earlier examples of the college's signature pranks including, if possible, the inaugural one. Was there a Big Bang of MIT pranks?