In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, an angry bystander punches a graduate student protester, a professor arrives in Athens after drifting 100 miles at sea, and more.

May 11, 1966—Nearly 400 protesters demonstrate their opposition to the American involvement in the Vietnam War during U. S. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s visit to Princeton University. (Johnson is present for the dedication of the Woodrow Wilson School.) A bystander reportedly expresses disagreement with the protesters by punching a graduate student involved.

May 12, 1870—Professor Henry Clay Cameron, Class of 1847, writes to Princeton to say he has arrived safely in Athens, though damage to the steamer he was travelling on meant he had drifted at sea for 100 miles in a leaking boat and the steamer had to make an emergency landing in a port in southern Dalmatia. 

May 13, 1886—George W. Gilmore, Class of 1882, sets sail for Korea, where he will found the Royal Korean College in Seoul at the request of Emperor Gojong. Gilmore will be one of the first people from the West to see Korea.

May 17, 1994—Aaron Lemonick *54 gives his last lecture in PHY 102 (Introductory Physics) before his retirement from the Princeton University faculty after 33 years. Lemonick served as Dean of the Graduate School as Princeton made its transition to become coeducational. He says the arrival of female students “changed the face of the campus for the better” and “I don’t think anything has been lost.”

For the previous installment in this series, click here.

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