It Happened at U-M
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September 3, 2024
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. Leith and Upatnieks jointly patented holography under the title “Wavefront Reconstruction Using a Coherent Reference Beam.”
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August 26, 2024
The first university hospital
Shortly after U-M’s Medical School opened in 1850, students started clamoring for the hands-on clinical instruction they lacked in their lectures. The Board of Regents allocated $582.12 to establish what became the nation’s first university-owned-and-operated hospital in 1869 on North University Avenue.
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August 12, 2024
Exploring Islamic art in the Midwest
Professor Mehmet Aga-Oglu was at the heart of two landmark events at the university: In 1933, he became the first professor of Islamic art at an American university, and less than a year later he founded Ars Islamica, the first academic journal to focus on art and architecture from Islamic nations.
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July 22, 2024
Digitizing the University Library
The University Library already had a strong track record of digitizing materials when Google co-founder Larry Page proposed to digitize books by the millions in 2004. Page and the University Library did just that, and U-M became the first public university to participate in Google’s massive book digitization initiative.
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June 24, 2024
The winning ways of ‘Hutch’
When the final pitch was delivered in a Michigan softball spring break game against Northern Kentucky in 2022, the Wolverines did far more than record a win in the young season. The 3-0 victory on Feb. 25 against the Norse made coach Carol Hutchins the winningest softball coach in NCAA history with 1,674 wins.
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June 10, 2024
The roots of U-M’s peony garden
In 1922, as he neared his 70th birthday, William E. Upjohn approached the U-M Board of Regents with an offer of “a very valuable collection of peonies.” More than a century later, the W.E. Upjohn Peony Garden is home to one of the world’s most impressive collections of peonies.
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May 20, 2024
LBJ’s ‘Great Society’ speech at U-M
When President Lyndon B. Johnson stood before the Class of 1964 at Michigan Stadium, it was the first time a sitting president had stepped foot on the U-M campus. His Great Society speech would be one of the most significant in Johnson’s presidency, and note cards from the speech are at the Bentley Historical Library.
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May 6, 2024
The university’s first gift — in 13 volumes
The first recorded gift from an individual to the university came from a well-to-do fur trader who never set foot in Ann Arbor. In 1840, Charles W.W. Borup shipped to U-M a highly regarded German encyclopedia set. Borup’s donation of 13 volumes gave U-M its first gift and a solid scholarly foundation in its fledgling library.
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April 29, 2024
Family trees and the ‘striking incidence’ of cancer
For years, U-M pathologist Aldred Scott Warthin studied the lives — and deaths from cancer — of an extended Ann Arbor family. In 1913, he wrote a landmark paper sharing that cancer could be passed on from generation to generation. Warthin’s research became the foundation of what is known as Lynch Syndrome.
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April 22, 2024
College Republicans and their U-M roots
In mid-May of 1892, hundreds of students from universities around the country gathered on the University of Michigan campus. When the students departed late that evening, it was as the newly christened American Republican College League, a national political group that continues today as the College Republicans.
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