April 1, 1998: Disney to Buy MIT for $6.9 Billion

1998: Massachusetts Institute of Technology students, long known for their school pranks, hack the school’s home page to announce to the world that the Walt Disney Co. would purchase MIT for $6.9 billion. The prestigious school would be renamed the Disney Institute of Technology, according to an April Fools’ Day press release linked to the […]

picture-151998: Massachusetts Institute of Technology students, long known for their school pranks, hack the school's home page to announce to the world that the Walt Disney Co. would purchase MIT for $6.9 billion.

The prestigious school would be renamed the Disney Institute of Technology, according to an April Fools' Day press release linked to the bogus home page.

The school was accustomed to various engineering pranks from its elite students, and left the hacked site up for most of the day. "I knew it was a hack as soon as I saw the price," an MIT spokesman quipped at the time. "Only $6.9 billion? Much too cheap!"

The fake press release, among other things, said: "As part of the acquisition, the entire MIT campus will be moved brick by brick down to the Walt Disney resort complex in Orlando, Florida."

The bogus statement also said MIT departments would be renamed after Disney characters. The Sloan School of Management would become the Scrooge McDuck School of Management. Its engineering department would become the school of "Imagineering."

Patti Richards, an MIT spokeswoman, said "nobody got into trouble" over the prank, and the campus is bracing for others Thursday, April 1.

"It's very much the tradition here," she said.

Source: Various

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