Cornell University is a private research university located in Ithaca, New York. The youngest member of the Ivy League, Cornell was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White as a coeducational, nonsectarian institution where admission was offered irrespective of religion or race. Conceived shortly after the American Civil War in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, its founders intended that the new university would teach and make contributions in all fields of knowledge — from the classics to the sciences and from the theoretical to the applied. The university is organized into seven undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions, each defining its own academic programs in near autonomy. From a new residential college housing system to its 2001 founding of a medical college in Qatar, Cornell claims "to serve society by educating the leaders of tomorrow and extending the frontiers of knowledge." Cornell counts more than 240,000 living alumni and 40 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the university as faculty or students. Research is a central element of the university's mission; Cornell spent $561.3 million on research and development in a diverse group of fields during the July 2004 to June 2005 fiscal year.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1378: Papal Schism: Unhappy with Pope Urban VI, a group of cardinals elected a rival papacy in Antipope Clement VII, throwing the Roman Catholic Church into a turmoil.

1854: The Crimean War began with a Franco-British victory over Russian forces in the Battle of Alma.

1870: The Bersaglieri entered Rome, ending the temporal power of the Pope and completing the unification of Italy.

1906: The ocean liner RMS Mauretania, the largest and fastest ship in the world at the time, was launched in Newcastle, England.

1973: Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets before 30,492 spectators at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas in an internationally televised tennis match dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes".

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"We control fifty percent of a relationship. We influence one hundred percent of it." -- Joyce Brothers (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joyce_Brothers)