The struggle was documented in the book, They Marched into Sunlight,[24] as well as the PBS documentary Two Days in October.[25] Among the students injured in the protest was current Madison mayor Paul Soglin. Another target of protest was the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC), located in Sterling Hall, which was also home of the physics department. The student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal, published a series of investigative

s one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.[22]
Expansion[edit]
Main article: University of Wisconsin System
Over time, additional campuses were added to the university. The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee was created in 1956, and UW–Green Bay and UW–Parkside in 1968. Ten freshman-sophomore centers were also added to this system.[23] In 1971, Wisconsin legislators passed a law merging the University of Wisconsin with the nine universities and four freshman-sophomore branch campuses of the Wisconsin State Universities System, creating the University of Wisconsin System and bringing the two higher education systems under a single board of regents.
Student activism[edit]
See also: Sterling Hall bombing


Bascom Hill, 1968, with crosses placed by students protesting the Vietnam War, and sign reading, "BASCOM MEMORIAL CEMETERY, CLASS OF 1968"


Sign near Sterling Hall commemorating fatal 1970 bomb attack
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, UW–Madison was shaken by a series of student protests, and by the use of force by authorities in response, comprehensively documented in the film The War at Home. The first major demonstrations protested the presence on campus of recruiters for the Dow Chemical Company, which supplied the napalm used in the Vietnam War. Authorities used force to quell the disturbance. The struggle was documented in the book, They Marched into Sunlight,[24] as well as the PBS documentary Two Days in October.[25] Among the students injured in the protest was current Madison mayor Paul Soglin.
Another target of protest was the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC), located in Sterling Hall, which was also home of the physics department. The student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal, published a series of investigative articles stating that AMRC was pursuing research directly pursuant to US Department of Defense requests, and supportive of military operations in Vietnam. AMRC became a magnet for demonstrations, in which protesters chanted "U.S. out of Vietnam! Smash Army Math!"
On August 24, 1970, near 3:40 am, a bomb exploded next to Sterling Hall, aimed at destroying the Army Math Research Center.[26] Despite the late hour, a post doctoral physics researcher, Robert Fassnacht, was in the lab and was killed in the explosion. The physics department was severely damaged, while the intended target, the AMRC, was scarcely affected. Karleton Armstrong, Dwight Armstrong, and David Fine were found responsible for the blast. Leo Burt was identified as a suspect, but was never apprehended or tried.[27]
While the student body has shed much of its radical image, the campus is still known for its progressive politics.[citation needed] In February 2011, thousands of students marched and occupied the Wisconsin State Capitol during the 2011 Wisconsin protests.
Timeline of notable events[edit]
Notable historical moments in the first 150 years of the University of Wisconsin–Madison include:
1863 Women students first admitted to University of Wisconsin during the American Civil War,[28][29][30]
1866 State legislature designated the University as the Wisconsin land-grant institution
April 4, 1892 The first edition of the student-run The Daily Cardinal was published
1894 State Board of Regents rejected an effort to purge Professor Richard T. Ely for supporting striking printers, issuing the famous "sifting and winnowing" manifesto in defense of academic freedom, later described as "part of Wisconsin's Magna Carta"[31]
1898 UW music instructors Henry Dyke Sleeper and Conner Ro