At spring workouts in 1969, U-M’s new head football coach Glenn E. ‘Bo’ Schembechler unleashed volcanic intensity on his new charges. He told them their overarching aim was to beat Ohio State on Nov. 22. The national press gave the Wolverines absolutely no chance against OSU. But the national press didn’t know Bo.

In 1933, when local media reported that a U-M researcher was engaged in a frivolous study about dancing mice, zoologist and University President Alexander Ruthven stepped in to defend the scientist’s reputation. Professor Lee Dice actually was advancing a theory about epilepsy and its genetic causes.

As Adolf Hitler’s power and influence expanded in the lead-up to World War II, college students across the U.S. aligned with their European counterparts in a strike against war and fascism. When they walked out of classes to take an American version of the Oxford Pledge, they sought to preserve the fragile peace in Europe. As with most student protests, the movement disturbed the peace at Michigan.

When the gates at Michigan Stadium opened to fans on Oct. 1, 1927, the venue could seat 72,000 fans — though heavy rains kept the day’s attendance to under 40,000. Thanks to the expansive vision of coach Fielding Yost, 107,601 fans can gather in Michigan Stadium nearly a hundred years later.

Long before online scheduling, U-M students gathered en masse to register for courses, often spending hours in line at Waterman Gym. The lucky ones might get their first choice and find a future spouse in the crowd. The less fortunate walked away dateless clutching a schedule filled with 8 o’clock classes.

To settle the Black Action Movement strike in 1970, the University promised enough financial aid to raise Black enrollment to 10 percent. The aid promise was kept. But Black enrollment rose only by small increments through the 1980s. So Black students and their supporters insisted that U-M do more. (Part 2 of a 2-part series.)

How do people feel about the president? The new laundry detergent? The state of the world? Prior to the Likert Scale and the founding of U-M’s Institute for Social Research, it was difficult to say. ISR’s legacy lives in every massive sample survey since Truman beat Dewey in 1948.

In February 1970, U-M students operating as the Black Action Movement called a strike on classes. They interrupted lectures, banged garbage-can lids in classroom buildings, and hassled fellow students attending class. Their demand to President Robben Fleming: Increase Black enrollment from 3.4 percent to 10 percent.

All good origin stories contain at least a kernel of myth at the center of the plot. If there’s any such myth in the University’s origins, it’s not about heroes or grandiose works. It’s an idea embedded in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 — that these Great Lakes states should provide public education to the region’s children.