On the banks of the Red Cedar,

There’s a school that’s known to all;

Its specialty is winning,

And those Spartans play good ball;

These words carry a tune that Michigan State students, faculty and Alumni have been singing for a long time. It is a tradition that you, as an incoming Michigan State student, will have the privilege of being a part of for the rest of your life, now that you are a spartan.

The Agricultural College of the State of Michigan was founded on Feb. 12, 1855 as the nations first agricultural college, since then the school has gone through five different name changes to get to the name known around the country today — Michigan State university, which became the official University name on Jan. 1, 1964.

When the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan was first founded, it became the pioneer land-grant institution in the country, the school was given 14,000-acre appropriation of state-owned land. The college beat out Farmer’s High School of Pennsylvania, later named Penn State University, by 10 days to become the first land-grant institution, which is why the winner of the Michigan State vs. Penn State football game is awarded the Land Grant Trophy.

The school’s fight song was written in 1915 by Francis Irving Lankey, a student and Yellmaster at MSU. The song was inspired by back-to-back road wins over national football powers Michigan and Wisconsin in 1913. The song officially was adopted as the fight song in 1919. The fight song has undergone some changes since it was first written.

Up until 1925, the school’s official nickname was the Aggies, because of the school’s agricultural focus, and a live bear named Monty served as the school’s mascot. In 1925, the nickname Spartans was adopted after a vote was held to select a new nickname, and the winning name, “The Michigan Staters”, was rejected and Spartans was selected instead.

In 1928, Beaumont Tower was built on the site of the first ever building on campus, College Hall. The tower was built in an effort to mark one of the oldest and most historical section of campus, and to discourage future building in that section of North Campus.

In 1941, the school’s longest serving president, John Hannah, was appointed, beginning his 28-year term. During his tenure, the school’s enrollment grew from just over 6,000 students to almost 40,000 students. And the college officially gained the label of University in 1955 as Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences became Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences.

Hannah also created a number of new programs at the school during his time, including adult education in 1951, an international student program in the 1950s, the creation of a medical program in the 1960s and he helped create what was known as MSU-Oakland in 1959, which became Oakland University in 1963.

In 1945, after years of planning and development, the first spartan statue was unveiled on June 9, 1945. The statue was made of terra cotta clay with a concrete cement outer coating. In 2005, due to the statue deteriorating from the weather and vandalism it had endured, a new statue made from a mold of the original statue and cast in bronze was unveiled. The original statue is currently housed in the Spartan Stadium tower atrium.

Hannah also helped Michigan State College gain admission into the Big Ten Conference in 1949 after three years of hard lobbying. A spot in the conference was opened up by the University of Chicago resigning in 1946.

In 1963, The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State became the nation’s largest nuclear science facility on a university campus. It is still operational today and still serves as one of the premier nuclear science research facilities.

On Thursday, February 11, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Michigan State’s campus to give a lecture at the Michigan State Auditorium, which was standing room only for the event, about the Student Education Program (STEP). The STEP program was the first all student-administered educational outreach program of its kind in the country. More than 4,000 students and community residents attended the campus visit and lecture by King

Former Michigan State University President Clifton R. Wharton became the first African American president of a major U.S. University when he was appointed in 1970. Wharton served an eight year term and created a preforming arts center, which would later become known as the Wharton Center for Performing Arts.

And in 2010, Michigan State University was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to design and build the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. It is a $615 million facility to be completed by 2020 that will advance understanding and research regarding rare nuclear isotopes and the evolution of the cosmos. It will also provide research opportunities for students and scientists around the globe.