Campus Facts
Through the years, the Illinois campus has been home to a huge number of "firsts," "bests," and even our share of, "no, reallys?"
From the world-changing
- Light-emitting diode (LED)
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
- The first graphical internet browser
- First university to offer wheelchair basketball as a collegiate sport
To the lesser-known
- The first model air-conditioned house was built here
- Our library houses more than 10 million volumes
- First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt cut the cake at the Illini Union first birthday celebration in 1942
To the offbeat
- The Undergraduate Libary was built underground to avoid blocking sunlight to the Morrow Plot experimental corn field
- Our first president (John Milton Gregory) is buried right in the center of campus
- The creator of the kid's board game, "Operation" was one of our students
They all started here at Illinois. Visit the link below to explore more of the inventions, innovations, accomplishments (and sometimes, just plain oddities) that, together, create a campus and a university with a personality and a style like no other in the world.