Milestones in Education & Scientific Discovery | December 4

On this day in 1844, Michigan Central College opened in Spring Arbor, becoming the first college in Michigan to offer degrees to women. It later moved to Hillsdale and was renamed Hillsdale College, the first American college to ban discrimination in its charter. In 1908, Dr. Alfred Day Hershey was born in Owosso; he won the Nobel Prize in 1969 for his groundbreaking work on DNA, having studied at Michigan State Agricultural College (now MSU).