This Week In KU History

July 8, 1932: KU football and wrestling star Pete Mehringer qualifies for the Olympics.

July 8, 1988: Roy Williams is named coach of the KU basketball Jayhawks.

July 12, 1989: Groundbreaking takes place for the Ernst F. Lied Center for the performing arts.

July 15, 1874: KU Board of Regents elects Professor S.H. Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin as chancellor, but after Carpenter endures Lawrence's 100-degree heat and swarms of invading grasshoppers, he departs for Madison and declines the job.

July 15, 1974: Spooner Hall gains a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

July 16, 1970: Former KU student Rick "Tiger" Dowdell, 19, is shot and killed by police in downtown Lawrence, sparking a series of protests, vandalism, and confrontations that culminates in the death of 18-year-old KU freshman Harry Nicholas "Nick" Rice on Oread Boulevard five days later.

July 17, 1966: At a track and field meet in Berkeley, Cal., KU freshman Jim Ryun runs the mile in 3:51.3, setting a new world record.

July 19, 1866: KU Board of Regents elects first three members of the school's faculty, Elial J. Rice to the "chair of Belles Lettres and Mental and Moral Philosophy," David H. Robinson to the "chair of Languages," and Francis H. Snow to the "chair of Mathematics and General Sciences."

Compiled by H.J. Fortunato
Department of History
University of Kansas

A project of the KU Memorial Unions, "This Week In KU History" is going online Fall 2002. Learn More