History

  1. December 12, 2024

    Inclusive History Project offers funding for research, engagement on U-M history

    U-M’s Inclusive History Project is accepting funding proposals from staff, faculty and students for its second year of research and engagement projects.

  2. November 4, 2024

    UM-Dearborn field study course digs up past to help plan future

    A UM-Dearborn archaeology class taught by associate professor John Chenoweth has focused on a site in Monroe for five years that was the epicenter of the War of 1812.

  3. October 28, 2024

    It Happened at Michigan — An historic public health degree

    Paul B. Cornely graduated from U-M in 1934, making him the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in public health in the United States.

  4. October 21, 2024

    It Happened at Michigan — Long line of genetics

    The U-M Department of Genetics officially opened in 1956, the first department in the U.S. dedicated to human genetics.

  5. October 14, 2024

    It Happened at Michigan — A forest of knowledge

    Following a period in which Michigan’s logging industry cleared acres upon acres of densely packed forests, U-M became the first university in the nation to offer courses in forestry in 1881.

  6. September 23, 2024

    Clovis camp: Early people likely returned to Great Lakes site

    The same researchers who discovered that Clovis people visited Michigan thousands of years ago have confirmed that those people traveled to the site annually.

  7. September 23, 2024

    It Happened at Michigan — An historic doctorate in botany

    Edavelth Kakkat Janaki Ammal made history in 1931 when she became the first Indian woman to receive a Doctor of Science degree in botany in the United States.

  8. September 16, 2024

    It Happened at Michigan — A lab for future chemists

    Shortly after becoming U-M’s first president, Henry Tappan declared in December 1855 that there was a strong need “to erect a chemical laboratory for the analytical courses” on campus.

  9. September 9, 2024

    It Happened at Michigan — Dermatology dawns

    More than two decades after U-M established the nation’s first university hospital, William Fleming Breakey approached the Medical School with a petition to start courses in dermatology and syphilology.

  10. September 3, 2024

    It Happened at Michigan — The first practical holograms

    The first breakthrough in practical holography came in 1964 — a 3D image that replicated a toy train courtesy of U-M researchers Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks.