8 U.S. presidents, 24 heads of state and 31 heads of government, founders of notable companies, Nobel laureates, Fields Medalists, members of Congress, MacArthur Fellows, Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Turing Award Recipients, Pulitzer Prize recipients, and Fulbright Scholars; by most metrics, Harvard University ranks among the top universities in the world in each of these categories. Harvard students and alumni have also collectively won 10 Academy Awards and 110 Olympic medals, including 46 gold medals.
== History ==
=== Colonial era ===
Harvard was founded in 1636 by a vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Its first headmaster, Nathaniel Eaton, took office the following year. In 1638, the university acquired English North America's first known printing press. The same year, on his deathbed, John Harvard, a Puritan clergyman who had emigrated to the colony from England, bequeathed the emerging college £780 and his library of some 320 volumes; the following year, it …
