It Happened at Michigan

  1. April 21, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan: A century of Yost

    When Yost Field House opened its doors on South State Street in 1923, it was the largest indoor collegiate athletic complex in the U.S.

  2. April 14, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — Aero Club took to the skies in hot air balloons

    In 1914, the first aeronautics class was offered at U-M, launching what would become the country’s first collegiate aeronautics program.

  3. April 7, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — One hundred years of Angell Hall

    Angell Hall, one of the Ann Arbor campus’ most iconic academic buildings and home to the Fishbowl was developed in the 1920s to address overcrowding on campus.

  4. March 31, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — How maize and blue became U-M’s colors

    Blue had been an unofficial color of U-M since the school’s founding, and maize was chosen by students because it provided a nice contrast to the blue.

  5. March 24, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — Founder of famed survey scale was U-M alum

    Rensis Likert, a U-M alum, groundbreaking researcher and co-founder of the university’s Institute for Social Research, created the Likert scale, widely used in surveys.

  6. March 17, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — When the Wolverines won it all

    The University of Michigan men’s team has made it to the championship game seven times since the NCAA Tournament began in 1939, winning it all in 1989.

  7. March 10, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — The Royal Shakespeare Company came to town

    In 2001, the Royal Shakespeare Company performed an historic 27-hour marathon at the Power Center for Performing Arts, presented by the University Musical Society.

  8. February 24, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — First weather report’s creator had U-M roots

    Cleveland Abbe, a U-M employee who studied astronomy in the late 1850s, eventually turned his focus to the weather and in 1869, created a regional weather service, based in Cincinnati.

  9. February 10, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — A novelist grows in Ann Arbor

    Years before Betty Smith published her best-selling, semi-autobiographical novel, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” she gained her voice as a writer at U-M.

  10. January 27, 2025

    It Happened at Michigan — Athletics kicked off with cricket

    In 1860, students on U-M’s campus mobilized to form the school’s first official club sport, and it wasn’t football or baseball. It was cricket.