Today is the feast day of St Radegunde, patron of Cambridge University 10 facts about Cambridge University:
It was founded in 1209 by a bunch of students at Oxford University who fled the town after a dispute with the townspeople. It is one of the oldest universities in the world.
The university has 31 colleges, which are basically places to live rather than where students attend lectures.
Girton was the first college for women, founded in 1869. However, although women could attend lectures and even sit exams, They weren’t allowed to actually receive a degree until 1948. Nowadays most of the colleges admit men and women, the last male college having let women in in 1988. There are, however, still two women only colleges.
Famous alumni include Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Sir David Attenborough, Alan Turing, King Charles III, Prince William, Prince Harry, CS Lewis, AA Milne, Samuel Pepys and William Wordsworth. Some fictional characters studied here too, including Niles Crane from Frasier and Raj Koothrappali from The Big Bang Theory.
121 affiliates of the University of Cambridge have been awarded the Nobel Prize since 1904.
It’s said to be where the first ever game of Football was played, in 1848. The codes created by the university in the 19th century (Cambridge Rules) were later adopted by the Football Association.
An early mention in the arts was in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In The Reeve's Tale, the two main fictional characters are students at a University of Cambridge college called Soler Halle, which is believed to refer to King's Hall and is now part of Trinity College. Since then the university has featured in many books and films including: Chariots of Fire, The Theory Of Everything, Pirates of The Caribbean and Sylvia.
It is home to an old Bridge which was constructed according to mathematical principles. The Mathematical Bridge, also known as the Wooden Bridge, connects two areas of Queen’s College. It was not, as many believe, built by Isaac Newton. James Essex constructed it in 1749 after William Etheridge had created the plan.
The Cambridge Library has over 3,00,000 volumes of books, manuscripts and documents from the 13th century. Charles Darwin’s papers are also kept here. The Cambridge University Press is the world’s oldest publishing house.
At one time, the student with the lowest passing grade in the university's Mathematical Tripos was traditionally awarded a wooden spoon. Since 1908, examination results have been published alphabetically within class rather than in strict order of merit, so it became hard to ascertain who came last and the tradition was discontinued.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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