<ul>
<li><p>Florida State University is the oldest institution of higher education in the State of Florida. The roots of FSU extend to the territorial (pre-State) days of Florida, when Tallahassee was a wild frontier town, known for knife fights, duels and hangings.</p></li>
<li><p>The FSU administration building sits on top of Gallows Hill, which is slightly west of the Florida Capitol Building. Gallows Hill was the location of public hangings in territorial Tallahassee. The territorial gallows were built in 1829 and stopped being used about ten years later. The City of Tallahassee donated the land to the State of Florida in the 1850s, when the State assumed full-time responsibility for the Florida Institute, predecessor school to the Florida State University of today.</p></li>
<li><p>In the 1850s Florida State was a coeducational school known as the Seminary West of the Suwanee and also as the Florida State Seminary. The Legislature was asked by school supporters to name the school the "University of Florida". The grandson of Thomas Jefferson (Francis Eppes) is recognized as an early university leader.</p></li>
<li><p>During the Civil War the school was renamed by the Confederate Legislature to the Florida Collegiate and Military Institute. Male students fought officially as a school unit in the Battle of Natural Bridge, which kept Tallahassee under Confederate control until General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederacy at Appomattox.</p></li>
<li><p>In 1883 the school received a State charter to become the "Florida University" later changed to the "University of Florida". The main campus was located where FSU is today. The school had a college of medicine. FSU kept the title "University of Florida" until 1903. For some reason the name was never embraced and seldom used.</p></li>
<li><p>The Westcott Building at FSU (built in 1910 and is the third university building on Gallows Hill) is where parts of the university administration is housed and where President Barron works. The Westcott Building was named for Florida Supreme Court Justice and Florida Attorney General James Diament Westcott, Jr. (1839-1887). Justice Westcott left a substantial estate to the university at his death.</p></li>
<li><p>FSU started playing football as early as 1899. In 1904 they were declared "state champs". The football rivalry starts around this time with the Florida Agricultural College in Lake City, one of the small schools which later would become the university in Gainesville. </p></li>
<li><p>In 1905 the Buckman Act was passed by the Legislature. This law directed the school to send all male students to Gainesville, to the new university called "The University of the State of Florida". The existing FSU football team became in large part the first University of Florida football team. The female university students were carefully supervised in a strict Southern tradition.</p></li>
<li><p>In 1933 the Florida State College for Women earns the first chapter of the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa academic society in the State of Florida.</p></li>
<li><p>The boys from the Gainesville school used to drive to Tallahassee to date the girls at the Tallahassee school. This resulted in many marriages with mixed Seminole and Gator allegiances.</p></li>
<li><p>In 1947 FSU started paying football again, after a 42 year hiatus (1905-1947).</p></li>
<li><p>At the end of World War II the segregation of university students by gender ended in Florida. Segregation by race would persist until the early 1960s.</p></li>
<li><p>In the 1960s and 1970s FSU was known as the "Berkeley of the South" due to radical student activities. One notable evening was known as the "Night of the Bayonets" due to a confrontation with law enforcement.</p></li>
<li><p>Streaking starts at FSU in the early 1970s.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>More recent notables:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In 1990, FSU was awarded the right to host the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the only National Laboratory in Florida. The National Science Foundation awarded FSU the “Mag Lab” over MIT. MIT protested the award, an unprecedented action, and asked the NSF to reconsider the award. The NSF affirmed its decision and the Mag Lab has been at FSU ever since.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2000 FSU was awarded the first new College of Medicine in 20 years in the United States. The med school was based on a distributed concept of third and fourth year medical education at operating hospitals instead of a single teaching hospital.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2009 FSU produced three Rhodes Scholars in four years - more than any other state university in the U.S.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2010 FSU is declared to be a “Budget Ivy” by the Fiske Guide.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Interesting footnote:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In 1972 FSU student, future parent2noles, streaks across FSU campus wearing nothing but his freshman beanie. Streaking fad begins at FSU and future parent2noles is nicknamed by fellow students “Landis Lightning.”</p></li>
<li><p>In 1972 FSUPD adds to its vehicle fleet a pursuit motocross motorcycle.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Shades of Elmo and Elmodine! How’d you find out? ;)</p>
<p>It’s interesting that FSU was the original “University of Florida.”</p>
<p>^Yes. From 1883 to 1903.</p>
<p>FSU won the first Rhodes Scholarship in Florida in 1905. FSU won the first Rhodes Scholarship by a female in Florida in 1977.</p>
<p>This is just plain awesome. Thanks for posting!</p>
<p>I’d like to know how many people Mrs. Killings has said “I love you!” to in her career at FSU.</p>
<p>Mrs. Killings started at Florida State when I was an undergrad. She is wonderful.</p>
<p>[Mrs. Eva Killings: The brightest light at FSU](<a href=“http://www.fsunews.com/article/20120125/FSVIEW1/120124022/Mrs-Eva-Killings-brightest-light-FSU”>http://www.fsunews.com/article/20120125/FSVIEW1/120124022/Mrs-Eva-Killings-brightest-light-FSU</a>)</p>
<p>I am having trouble confirming this, but I think FSU also won the first Rhodes Scholarship by a black student in Florida in 2006 (Garrett Johnson).</p>