In 1686 the name giver of our institution, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz visitied a cave in the West Harz, where some years before bones had been discovered that were thought to belong to unicorns. Leibniz, who had an interest in paleontology, later included a drawing of this unicorn skeleton in his book Protagaea. One of the first paleontologic reconstructions of an yet unobserved species.The Wikipedia entry on the Einhornhöhle seem to take it's information from the caves official page, which unfortunately doesn't support direct links. Both pages also mention the influence of a certain Otto von Guericke who has been in correspondence with Leibniz over the unicorn and is stated by him as the source in Protagaea.
See for yourself in the translation of the original publication by Leibniz.
There also is a wired article on that matter. The bones that inspired the discovery seemed to belong to mammoths and other ice-age creatures. And it's stated that the horn only looked straight from a certain perspective.
The matter is still controversially discussed amongst historians, as you can see here: Leibniz on the Unicorn and Various Other Curiosities.
Based on the information available, we think it's an elaborated hoax. Leibniz must have known that the reconstruction was no unicorn and including a drawing in his serious book, fooling around with his readers, must have been hilarious. All by adding a horn to a yet existing thing. Simple as that.
Nevertheless, the connection between our university and unicorns is not completely arbitrary.
An observant citizen has collected all hannover's unicorns. Check out the link, there's much to learn.
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