1.
Weimar Republic
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Weimar Republic is an unofficial, historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place, the official name of the state was still Deutsches Reich, it had remained unchanged since 1871. In English the country was known simply as Germany. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the Deutsches Reich was written, in its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, and contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. The people of Germany blamed the Weimar Republic rather than their leaders for the countrys defeat. However, the Weimar Republic government successfully reformed the currency, unified tax policies, Weimar Germany eliminated most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, it never completely met its disarmament requirements, and eventually paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the borders of the republic. From 1930 onwards President Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, the Great Depression, exacerbated by Brünings policy of deflation, led to a surge in unemployment. In 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor with the Nazi Party being part of a coalition government, the Nazis held two out of the remaining ten cabinet seats. Von Papen as Vice Chancellor was intended to be the éminence grise who would keep Hitler under control, within months the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 had brought about a state of emergency, it wiped out constitutional governance and civil liberties. Hitlers seizure of power was permissive of government by decree without legislative participation and these events brought the republic to an end, as democracy collapsed, a single-party state founded the Nazi era. The Weimar Republic is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar, Germany from 6 February 1919 to 11 August 1919, but this name only became mainstream after 1933. To the right of the spectrum the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model, the Catholic Centre party, Zentrum favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat while on the moderate left the Chancellors SPD preferred Deutsche Republik. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany, after the introduction of the republic, the flag and coat of arms of Germany were officially altered to reflect the political changes. The Weimar Republic retained the Reichsadler, but without the symbols of the former Monarchy and this left the black eagle with one head, facing to the right, with open wings but closed feathers, with a red beak, tongue and claws and white highlighting. If the Reichs Eagle is shown without a frame, the charge and colors as those of the eagle of the Reichs coat of arms are to be used. The patterns kept by the Federal Ministry of the Interior are decisive for the heraldic design, the artistic design may be varied for each special purpose. The achievements and signs of movement were mostly done away with after its downfall
2.
Frankfurt
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The city is at the centre of the larger Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 5.8 million and is Germanys second-largest metropolitan region after Rhine-Ruhr. Since the enlargement of the European Union in 2013, the centre of the EU is about 40 km to the east of Frankfurts CBD. Frankfurt is culturally and ethnically diverse, with half of the population. A quarter of the population are foreign nationals, including many expatriates, Frankfurt is an alpha world city and a global hub for commerce, culture, education, tourism and traffic. Its the site of many global and European headquarters, Frankfurt Airport is among the worlds busiest. Automotive, technology and research, services, consulting, media, Frankfurts DE-CIX is the worlds largest internet exchange point. Messe Frankfurt is one of the worlds largest trade fairs, major fairs include the Frankfurt Motor Show, the worlds largest motor show, the Music Fair, and the Frankfurt Book Fair, the worlds largest book fair. Frankfurt is home to educational institutions, including the Goethe University, the UAS, the FUMPA. Its renowned cultural venues include the concert hall Alte Oper, Europes largest English Theatre and many museums, Frankfurts skyline is shaped by some of Europes tallest skyscrapers. In sports, the city is known as the home of the top football club Eintracht Frankfurt, the basketball club Frankfurt Skyliners, the Frankfurt Marathon. Its the seat of German sport unions for Olympics, football, Frankfurt is the largest financial centre in continental Europe. It is home to the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is one of the worlds largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and accounts for more than 90 percent of the turnover in the German market. Frankfurt is considered a city as listed by the GaWC groups 2012 inventory. Among global cities it was ranked 10th by the Global Power City Index 2011, among financial centres it was ranked 8th by the International Financial Centers Development Index 2013 and 9th by the Global Financial Centres Index 2013. Its central location within Germany and Europe makes Frankfurt a major air, rail, Frankfurt Airport is one of the worlds busiest international airports by passenger traffic and the main hub for Germanys flag carrier Lufthansa. Frankfurter Kreuz, the Autobahn interchange close to the airport, is the most heavily used interchange in the EU, in 2011 human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Frankfurt as seventh in its annual Quality of Living survey of cities around the world. According to The Economist cost-of-living survey, Frankfurt is Germanys most expensive city, Frankfurt has many high-rise buildings in the city centre, forming the Frankfurt skyline. It is one of the few cities in the European Union to have such a skyline and because of it Germans sometimes refer to Frankfurt as Mainhattan, the other well known and obvious nickname is Bankfurt
3.
Wallraf-Richartz Museum
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The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud is one of the three major museums in Cologne, Germany. It houses an art gallery with a collection of art from the medieval period to the early twentieth century. The museum dates back to the year 1824, when the collection of medieval art from Franz Ferdinand Wallraf came to the city of Cologne by inheritance. The first building was donated by Johann Heinrich Richartz, and the museum was opened in 1861, the collection was regularly expanded by donations, especially the Haubrich collection of contemporary art, in 1946. In 1976, on the occasion of the donation of Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig, the new Museum Ludwig took over the exhibition of the 20th century art. The current building from 2001, near the Cologne City Hall, was designed by Oswald Mathias Ungers, also in 2001, Swiss collector Gérard Corboud gave his impressionist and postimpressionist collection of over 170 works to the museum as a permanent loan. The museum then added Fondation Corboud to its name, the Madonna in the Rose Bower, shown at right, is among the Gothic paintings in the collection of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. It was created by Stefan Lochner, who lived in Germany between 1410 and 1451, mainly working in Cologne and he is considered a late Gothic painter. His work usually has an appearance, combining the Gothic attention to long flowing lines with brilliant colors. This painting is considered typical of his style and it was executed about 1450, and shows the Virgin and Child reposing in a blooming rose arbor that is attended by Lochners characteristic, child angels. The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum houses an altarpiece from the Great Saint Martin Church in Cologne, one of the few works by Jacob van Utrecht. Among other early Renaissance works in the collection are the Adoration of the Child by Hieronymous Bosch, the Wallraf-Richartz collection includes Child among staked roses or Kind zwischen Stockrosen, which was painted by the Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot, in 1881. In 1864, paintings by Morisot began to be admitted for exhibition in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris, morisots work continued to be selected for exhibition in the salon for ten years before, in 1874, she joined the rejected Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions. Organized by Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, on February 14,2008, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum announced that On the Banks of the Seine by Port Villez, attributed to Claude Monet, was a forgery. The discovery was made when the painting was examined by restorers prior to an upcoming Impressionism exhibition, x-ray and infrared testing revealed that a colorless substance had been applied to the canvas to make it appear older. The picture was acquired by the museum in 1954, the museum, which will keep the forgery, still has five authentic Monet paintings in its collection
4.
Eifel
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The Eifel is a low mountain range in western Germany and eastern Belgium. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the south of the German-speaking Community of Belgium, the Eifel is part of the Rhenish Massif, within its northern portions lies the Eifel National Park. The Eifel lies between the cities of Aachen to the north, Trier to the south and Koblenz to the east and it descends in the northeast along a line from Aachen via Düren to Bonn into the Lower Rhine Bay. In the east and south it is bounded by the valleys of the Rhine, to the west it transitions in Belgium and Luxembourg into the geologically related Ardennes and the Luxembourg Ösling. In the north it is limited by the Jülich-Zülpicher Börde, within Germany it lies within the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, in BeNeLux the area of Eupen, St. Vith and Luxembourg. Its highest point is the cone of the Hohe Acht. Originally the Carolingian Eifelgau only covered the region roughly around the sources of the rivers Ahr, Kyll. Its name was recently transferred to the entire region. Individual mountain chains, up to 700 m, such as the Schneifel and High Fens, run through the western part of the plateau. The rivers draining into the Moselle, Rhine and Meuse, such as the Our, Kyll, Ahr, Brohl and Rur, have cut deep into the edge of the Eifel and formed larger valleys. The Eifel covers an area of 5,300 km² and is divided into the North and South Eifel. It is further divided into several natural regional landscapes, some with further subdivisions, there are several distinct chains within the Eifel. The northernmost parts are called North Eifel including Rur Eifel the origin of the river Rur, High Fens, the northeastern part is called Ahr Hills and rise north of the Ahr river in the district of Ahrweiler. South of the Ahr is the High Eifel, with the Hohe Acht being the highest mountain of the Eifel, in the west, on the Belgian border, the hills are known as Schneifel, rising up to 698 m. Also in the west, by the Belgian and Luxembourg border, the southern half of the Eifel is lower. It is cut by rivers running north-south towards the Moselle. The largest of these is the Kyll, and the hills on either side of river are called the Kyllwald. In the south the Eifel is concluded by the Voreifel above the Moselle, since 2004 about 110 km² of the Eifel within the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia have been protected as the Eifel National Park nature reserve
5.
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
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The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is a public research university and one of the largest research and education institutions in Germany. KIT is one of the universities in the Engineering and Natural Sciences in Europe. KIT is a member of the TU9 German Institutes of Technology e. V, as part of the German Universities Excellence Initiative KIT was accredited with the excellence status in 2006. In the 2011 performance ranking of scientific papers, Karlsruhe ranked first in Germany and among the top ten universities in Europe in engineering, for the natural sciences KIT led the domestic comparison against the LMU Munich, the University of Heidelberg and the Technical University of Munich. Ranked 26th place in Computer Science in the Times Higher Education Ranking 2016, as of 2016,6 Nobel laureates are affiliated with KIT. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is well known for many inventors and entrepreneurs such as Karl Friedrich Benz or the founders of SAP, the University of Karlsruhe was founded as Polytechnische Schule, a polytechnical school, on 7 October 1825. It was modelled upon the École polytechnique in Paris, in 1865, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden raised the school to the status of a Hochschule, an institution of higher education. Since 1902 the university has also known as the Fridericiana in his honour. In 1885, it was declared a Technische Hochschule, or institute of technology, and in 1967 it became an Universität, a full university, which gave it the right to award regular doctorate degrees. It had hitherto only been allowed to award doctorates in engineering, identified as Dr. Ing, the University of Karlsruhe has been one of the leading German institutions in computer science. A central computer laboratory was founded in 1966, the department of informatics was established three years later, along with the first regular course in informatics. On 2 August 1984, the university received Germanys first email, the Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung was founded at the university in 1985. The name was chosen in emulation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in February 2008, the merger of the university and the research centre to form KIT was agreed by the state of Baden-Württemberg and Germanys federal government. The necessary state law was passed on 8 July 2009, KIT was formally established on 1 October 2009. This aim was not achieved, while the University of Karlsruhe was chosen for the initiative in 2006/2007 and it did, however, attract funds from other sources. In 2008, Hans-Werner Hector, co-founder of SAP, raised 200 million euros to support researchers at the institute, since the winter semester of 2008/2009, KIT has completed the change from the Diplom system to a bachelor and master system. Students already enrolled for a degree when the transition began were allowed to finish their studies. All courses require a number of passed exams, called Orientierungsprüfung or orientation assessment
6.
Egon Eiermann
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Egon Eiermann was one of Germanys most prominent architects in the second half of the 20th century. Eiermann was born in Neuendorf bei Potsdam, and studied at the Technical University of Berlin and he worked for the Karstadt building department for a time, and before World War II had an office with fellow architect Fritz Jaenecke. He joined the faculty of the university in Karlsruhe in 1947 and he died in Baden-Baden, aged 65. By far his most famous work is the new church on the site of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, Eiermann worked as art director on the 1926 film The Pink Diamond. Media related to Egon Eiermann at Wikimedia Commons Egon Eiermann Gesellschaft e. V
7.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
8.
Karlsruhe
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Karlsruhe is the second-largest city in the state of Baden-Württemberg, in southwest Germany, near the French-German border. It has a population of 307,755, the city is the seat of the two highest courts in Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal Court of Justice. Its most remarkable building is Karlsruhe Palace, which was built in 1715, the city lies at an altitude between 100 m and 322 m. Its geographical coordinates are 49°00′N 8°24′E, the 49th parallel runs through the city centre and its course is marked by a stone and painted line in the Stadtgarten. Almost all of these survived until today. The city centre is the oldest part of town and lies south of the palace in the quadrant defined by nine of the radial streets, the central part of the palace runs east-west, with two wings, each at a 45° angle, directed southeast and southwest. The market square lies on the street running south from the palace to Ettlingen, the area north of the palace is a park and forest. The area west of the palace is now mostly residential, Karlsruhe experiences an oceanic climate and its winter climate is milder, compared to most other German cities. Summers are also hotter than elsewhere in the country and it is one of the sunniest cities in Germany, precipitation is almost evenly spread throughout the year. In 2008, the station in Karlsruhe, which had been operating since 1876, was closed, it was replaced by a weather station in Rheinstetten. A variation of this claims that he built the new palace in order to find peace from his wife. Charles William founded the city on June 17,1715, after a dispute with the citizens of his previous capital, the founding of the city is closely linked to the construction of the palace. Karlsruhe became the capital of Baden-Durlach and in 1771 of the united Baden until 1945, built in 1822, the Ständehaus was the first parliament building in a German State. In the aftermath of the revolution of 1848, a republican government was elected here. Karlsruhe was visited by Thomas Jefferson during his time as the American envoy to France, Jefferson passed to him maps of 12 European towns to consult, one of which was a sketch he had made of Karlsruhe during his visit. In 1860, the international professional convention of chemists, the Karlsruhe Congress, was held in the city. Much of the area, including the palace, was reduced to rubble by Allied bombing during World War II but was rebuilt after the war. Located in the American zone of the post-war Allied occupation, Karlsruhe was home to an American military base, in 1995, the bases closed, and their facilities were turned over to the city of Karlsruhe
9.
Technical University of Berlin
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The Technische Universität Berlin, known as TU Berlin and unofficially as the Technical University of Berlin, is a research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1879 and became one of the most prestigious institutions in Europe. It has one of the highest proportions of students in Germany. It belongs to the Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education, the TU Berlin is home of two innovation centers designated by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. The university is known for its highly ranked engineering programmes, especially in engineering and engineering management. The university alumni and professor list include US National Academies members, the TH Charlottenburg was named after the borough of its location in Charlottenburg just outside Berlin. Beforehand, the college had been, however, for several decades under the auspices of the Frederick William University. After Charlottenburgs absorption into Greater Berlin in 1920 and Germany being turned into Weimar Republic, in 1927, the Department of Geodesy of the Agricultural College of Berlin was incorporated into the TH Berlin. The shell construction remained unfinished after the outbreak of World War II and after Beckers suicide in 1940, the north section of the main building of the university was destroyed during a bombing raid in November 1943. Due to the fighting at the end of the Second World War. Planning for the re-opening of the school began on June, 2nd 1945, once the acting rectorship led by Gustav Ludwig Hertz and Max Volmer was appointed. As both Hertz and Volmer remained in exile in the Soviet Union for some time to come, since 2009 the TU Berlin houses two Knowledge and Innovation Communities designated by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. The TU Berlin covers 604,000 m², distributed over various locations in Berlin, the main campus is located in the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. The seven schools of the university have some 33,933 students enrolled in 90 subjects, El Gouna campus, Technische Universität Berlin has established a satellite campus in Egypt to act as a scientific and academic field office. The nonprofit public-private partnership aims to offer services provided by Technische Universität Berlin at the campus in El Gouna on the Red Sea, in addition there are 2,651 student assistants and 126 trainees. International student mobility is applicable through ERASMUS programme or through Top Industrial Managers for Europe network, the new common main library of Technische Universität Berlin and of the Berlin University of the Arts was opened in 2004 and holds about 2.9 million volumes. The library building was sponsored partially by Volkswagen and is named officially University Library of the TU Berlin, a source of confusion to many, the letters above the main entrance only state Volkswagen Bibliothek – without any mentioning of the universities. Bruno Ahrends, architect Steffen Ahrends, architect Stancho Belkovski, Bulgarian architect, head of Higher Technical School in Sofia, wilhelm Cauer, mathematician, essential contributions to the design of filters
10.
Cornell University
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Cornell University is an American private Ivy League and land-grant doctoral university located in Ithaca, New York. These ideals, unconventional for the time, are captured in Cornells motto, the university also administers two satellite medical campuses, one in New York City and one in Education City, Qatar. Cornell is one of three private land grant universities in the nation and the one in New York. Of its seven colleges, three are state-supported statutory or contract colleges through the State University of New York system, including its agricultural. Of Cornells graduate schools, only the college is state-supported. As a land grant college, Cornell operates a cooperative extension program in every county of New York. The Cornell University Ithaca Campus comprises 745 acres, but is larger when the Cornell Botanic Gardens are considered. Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational, non-sectarian institution where admission has not been restricted by religion or race, the student body consists of more than 14,000 undergraduate and 7,000 graduate students from all 50 American states and more than 120 countries. Cornell University was founded on April 27,1865, the New York State Senate authorized the university as the land grant institution. Senator Ezra Cornell offered his farm in Ithaca, New York, as a site, fellow senator and experienced educator Andrew Dickson White agreed to be the first president. During the next three years, White oversaw the construction of the first two buildings and traveled to attract students and faculty, the university was inaugurated on October 7,1868, and 412 men were enrolled the next day. Cornell developed as an innovative institution, applying its research to its own campus as well as to outreach efforts. For example, in 1883 it was one of the first university campuses to use electricity from a dynamo to light the grounds. Cornell has had active alumni since its earliest classes and it was one of the first universities to include alumni-elected representatives on its Board of Trustees. Today the university has more than 4,000 courses, since 2000, Cornell has been expanding its international programs. In 2004, the university opened the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and it has partnerships with institutions in India, Singapore, and the Peoples Republic of China. Former president Jeffrey S. Lehman described the university, with its international profile. On March 9,2004, Cornell and Stanford University laid the cornerstone for a new Bridging the Rift Center to be built, Cornells main campus is on East Hill in Ithaca, New York, overlooking the town and Cayuga Lake
11.
Harvard University
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Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
12.
University of California, Los Angeles
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The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California, United States. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919 and it offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. UCLA enrolls about 31,000 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students, and had 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016, including transfer applicants, the university is organized into six undergraduate colleges, seven professional schools, and four professional health science schools. Fourteen Nobel laureates, three Fields Medalists, two Chief Scientists of the U. S. Air Force and three Turing Award winners have been faculty, researchers, or alumni, the university was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1974. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015–2016 ranked UCLA 16th in the world for academics, in 2015-2016, UCLA ranked 12th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and 31st in the 2016/17 QS World University Rankings. UCLA student-athletes compete as the Bruins in the Pac-12 Conference, the Bruins won 126 national championships, including 113 NCAA team championships, more than any other university. UCLA student-athletes, coaches and staff won 251 Olympic medals,126 gold,65 silver and 60 bronze, UCLA student-athletes competed in every Olympics since 1920 with one exception, and won a gold medal in every Olympics that the United States participated in since 1932. The State Normal School at Los Angeles opened on August 29,1882, the facility included an elementary school where teachers-in-training could practice their technique with children. That elementary school is related to the present day version, UCLA Lab School, in 1887, the school became known as the Los Angeles State Normal School. In 1914, the moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue in East Hollywood. However, David Prescott Barrows, the new President of the University of California, the same legislation added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926, the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname Bruins, in 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles. In the same year, the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million, less than one-third its value, by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss, the campus in Westwood opened to students in 1929. The original four buildings were the College Library, Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology Building, the first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. A timeline of the history can be found on its website, during its first 32 years, UCLA was treated as an off-site department of UC. As such, its presiding officer was called a provost, in 1951, UCLA was formally elevated to co-equal status with UC Berkeley, and its presiding officer Raymond B. Allen was the first chief executive to be granted the title of chancellor. The appointment of Franklin David Murphy to the position of Chancellor in 1960 helped spark an era of growth of facilities. By the end of the decade, UCLA had achieved distinction in a range of subjects
