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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk, some Oxford academics fled northeast to Cambridge, where, in 1209, they established the University of Cambridge. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are jointly referred to as Oxbridge.

The University of Oxford is made up of 43 constituent colleges, consisting of 36 semi-autonomous colleges, four permanent private halls and three societies (colleges that are departments of the university, without their own royal charter), and a range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions. Each college is a self-governing institution within the university, controlling its own membership and having its own internal structure and activities. All students are members of a college. The university does not have a main campus, but its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre. Undergraduate teaching at Oxford consists of lectures, small-group tutorials at the colleges and halls, seminars, laboratory work and occasionally further tutorials provided by the central university faculties and departments. Postgraduate teaching is provided in a predominantly centralised fashion.

Oxford operates the Ashmolean Museum, the world's oldest university museum; Oxford University Press, the largest university press in the world; and the largest academic library system nationwide. In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2023, the university had a total consolidated income of £2.92 billion, of which £789 million was from research grants and contracts.

Oxford has educated a wide range of notable alumni, including 31 prime ministers of the United Kingdom and many heads of state and government around the world. As of October 2022,^[update] 73 Nobel Prize laureates, 4 Fields Medalists, and 6 Turing Award winners have matriculated, worked, or held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford, while its alumni have won 160 Olympic medals. Oxford is the home of numerous scholarships, including the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the oldest international graduate scholarship programmes. (Full article...)

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The Boat Race, also known as the "University Boat Race" and "The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race", is a rowing race between Oxford University Boat Club and Cambridge University Boat Club each spring on the River Thames in London. The course (map pictured), which is 4 miles 374 yards long (6,779 metres), runs from Putney to Mortlake, passing Hammersmith and Barnes. The clubs' presidents toss a coin before the race for the right to choose which side of the river (station) they will row on: the north station ("Middlesex") has the advantage of the first and last bends, and the south ("Surrey") station the longer middle bend. Members of both teams are traditionally known as "blues" and each boat as a "Blue Boat", with Cambridge in light blue and Oxford dark blue. The first race was in 1829 and it has been held annually since 1856, with the exception of the two world wars. The 2012 race was won by Cambridge, after an interruption by a protestor swimming across the river into the path of the boats. As of 2014 Cambridge have won the race 81 times and Oxford 78 times, with one dead heat. The event is a popular one, not only with the alumni of the universities, but also with rowers in general and the public. (Full article...)

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Sir Herbert Hope Risley (1851–1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of Bengal. He is notable for the formal application of the caste system to the entire Hindu population of India in the 1901 census, of which he was in charge. Risley was influential in the 20th century revival of the hierarchical varna system as a structure for social order in India. He was born in Buckinghamshire and attended New College, Oxford, prior to joining the Indian Civil Service. He was posted initially to Bengal where his professional duties engaged him in statistical and ethnographic research, and soon developed an interest in anthropology. His decision to indulge these interests curtailed his initial rapid advancement through the ranks of the Service, although he was later appointed Census Commissioner and, shortly before his death in 1911, became Permanent Secretary at the India Office in London. He emphasised the value of fieldwork and anthropometrical studies, in contrast to the reliance on old texts and folklore that had historically been the methodology of Indologists and which was still a significant approach in his lifetime. (more...)

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St Antony's College is a college for graduate students and researchers only, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and modern international history. The college was established in 1950 by gift of Antonin Besse, a merchant of French descent; students were first admitted in 1953 (women in 1962) and it became a full member of the university in 1963. It is named after St Antony of Egypt. The college buildings, a former Anglican convent built in the 1960s, are to the north of the city, with Woodstock Road to the west, Bevington Road to the south and Winchester Road to the east. Libraries on the site include the Middle East Centre Library, the Latin American Centre Library, the Bodleian Japanese Library and the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre Library. The Warden is the Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan; former Wardens have included the social theorist Ralf Dahrendorf and the diplomat Marrack Goulding. There are about 400 students; alumni include the historians C.A. Bayly and Richard J. Evans, the journalists Anne Applebaum and Thomas Friedman, the American Senator Gary Hart and the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall. (Full article...)

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Credit: Godot13

The sundial pillar in the quadrangle of Corpus Christi College. The college, one of the smallest in terms of student numbers, was founded by Richard Foxe, the Bishop of Winchester, in 1517. The sundial pillar was added in 1581.

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Did you know

Articles from Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:

... that British surgeon Theodore Dyke Acland was the son-in-law of Jack the Ripper suspect Sir William Gull (pictured)?
... that at the 1895 United Kingdom General Election, Tankerville Chamberlayne's election as a Member of Parliament was declared void because of electoral fraud?
... that Arthur William Hodge was the only white person in the history of the British West Indies to be executed for killing a black slave?
... that Lord Michael Fitzalan-Howard and his seven siblings all had first names beginning with the letter "M"?
... that it took over 50 years to complete the foundation of Jesus College, as one Principal lost the draft statutes and the next one kept the replacement copy in his study for several years?

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“

Whilom ther was dwellynge at Oxenford
A riche gnof, that gestes heeld to bord,
And of his craft he was a carpenter.
With hym ther was dwellynge a poure scoler,
Hadde lerned art, but al his fantasye
Was turned for to lerne astrologye...

”

— Geoffrey Chaucer, the opening lines of "The Miller's Tale", one of The Canterbury Tales

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