This Week In KU History

December 3, 1956: Wilt Chamberlain, arguably the most dominant player in the history of basketball, makes his spectacular KU debut by scoring 52 points as the Jayhawks crush Northwestern in Allen Field House.
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December 4, 1955: After serving as “temporary” women’s housing for 12 years, Foster Hall finally becomes a men’s scholarship residence as originally intended. 
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December 7, 1905: In KU’s Bailey Hall, chemistry professors Hamilton P. Cady (pictured) and David F. McFarland, discover that helium can be extracted from natural gas.
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December 7, 1972: Commander Ronald E. Evans becomes the first KU alumnus in space when he and two other astronauts of Apollo 17 blast off from Cape Kennedy on NASA’s sixth and final 20th century manned mission to the moon.
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December 10, 1941: The University Daily Kansan responds to Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor with a scathing editorial titled “An Open Letter To Hirohito.”
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December 11, 1970: Three KU students are injured and Summerfield Hall is damaged when a bomb tears through the University’s Computation Center.
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December 12, 1941: After obtaining a federal priority rating by agreeing that Lindley Hall would “assume defense tasks” for the duration of World War II, KU begins work on the construction of its new mineral industries building.
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December 15, 1924: The University’s first radio station, KFKU, broadcasts its first program.
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December 23, 1881: Cora M. Downs of Wyandotte accepts an offer from Kansas Governor John P. St. John to become the first woman member of the KU Board of Regents.
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Compiled by Henry Fortunato
University of Kansas

This Week In KU History is a project of the KU Memorial Unions.

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Copyright 2005 © University of Kansas Memorial Corporation