Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The oldest senior-class society at the university, Skull and Bones has become a cultural institution known for its powerful alumni and various conspiracy theories. It is one of the "Big Three" societies at Yale, the other two being Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head. The society is known informally as "Bones," and members are known as "Bonesmen," "Members of The Order" or "Initiated to The Order." History Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 after a dispute among Yale debating societies Linonia, Brothers in Unity, and the Calliopean Society over that season's Phi Beta Kappa awards. William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft co-founded "The Order of the Skull and Bones". The first senior members included Russell, Taft, and thirteen other members. Alternative names for Skull and Bones are The Order, Order 322 and The Brotherhood of Death. The first extended description of Skull and Bones, published in 1871 by Lyman Bagg in his book Four Years at Yale, noted that "the mystery now attending its existence forms the one great enigma which college gossip never tires of discussing." Brooks Mather Kelley attributed the interest in Yale senior societies to the fact that underclassmen members of then freshman, sophomore, and junior class societies returned to campus the following years and could share information about society rituals, while graduating seniors were, with their knowledge of such, at least a step removed from campus life. Since its beginnings, Skull and Bones annually selects fifteen members of the junior class to join the society. Skull and Bones selects new members among students every spring as part of Yale University's "Tap Day", and has done so since 1879. It "taps" those that it views as campus leaders and other notable figures for its membership.