1776 - Education

Education

The Phi Beta Kappa Society is founded December 5 at Virginia's 83-year-old College of William and Mary, whose administrators sever the institution's ties with Britain. Five young men have gathered at a local Williamsburg tavern for conviviality and to debate such subjects as "Whether French politics be more injurious than New England rum" or "Had William the Norman a right to invade England?" (Chapters of the new scholastic fraternity will be established at Harvard and Yale in 1779, Harvard men will debate the question of whether Adam had a navel, Yale men whether females have intellectual capacities equal to those of males, and into the 21st century election to PBK will carry great prestige in U.S. academic circles.)