ECHOES - stories from four centuries of Groningen university

The Academy Building in Groningen looks as though it is as old as the university itself. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it is already the third Academy Building, after the previous one was destroyed by fire. ‘The Fire in the Academy Building’ is the eighth and final episode of the second season of the UKrant podcast Echoes. Christien Boomsma takes you back to 1906, the year...

Doing brilliant research is one thing. Recognising it is another. The young Hungarian researcher Albert Szent-Györgyi laboured for months in a Groningen basement, searching for a mysterious substance that would later turn out to be Vitamin C. But as far as his research supervisor was concerned, the work might as well have been thrown in the bin. ‘The Cats of Albert Szent-Györgyi’ is the sixth epis...

Groningen was in an uproar in 1773. After years of dispute, the renowned professor Van der Marck was dismissed. He had, after all, dared to argue that the Church should submit to the state — and that was something he would have done better not to say. ‘Martyr for the Truth’ is the fifth episode of the second season of the UKrant podcast Echoes. Christien Boomsma takes you back to the year 1773, wh...

They were to become heroes. Brave fighters who would bleed for their country. But the Groningen student Tjalling Pieter Tresling soon discovered that war against the ‘vile looters and murderers’ in Belgium was very different from what he had imagined. ‘For King and Country’ is the fourth episode of the second season of the UKrant podcast Echoes . Christien Boomsma takes you back to 1831, the year...

A small hamlet in Groningen was, nearly 400 years ago, the setting of the largest sodomy trial ever held in the Netherlands. Twenty-one men were killed — all because of the lust for power of a local nobleman and the willing assistance of a Groningen professor. The Deadly Advice of Arnoldus Rotgers is the third episode of the third season of the UKrant podcast Echoes. Christien Boomsma takes you ba...

For hundreds of years, offences involving a student or professor were tried by the university’s own court. But what happens when the rector magnificus and a student fall out? 'Obscene songs' is the seventh episode of the second season of the UKrant podcast Echoes . Christien Boomsma takes you back to 1617, the year Rector Cornelis Pijnacker clashed with a student who wrote obscene poems ab...

Yes, Aletta Jacobs had already been admitted to the University of Groningen in 1871. And yes, Groningen was known as a woman-friendly university. Even so, the brilliant geneticist Tine Tammes worked at that same university for decades without pay before being appointed associate professor. 'She wont' be a bother to you' is the second episode of the second season of the UKrant podcast Echoes. Chris...

Do you think members of Vindicat atque Polit behave outrageously with “banga lists” and misconduct during winter sports trips? Four hundred years ago, students practically declared war on the university when one student refused to join their ‘nation’. It resulted in a pitched battle around the home of the rector magnificus, in which both the students and the besieged residents exchanged gunfire. T...

Mathematicians and physicists today think and calculate in much more than three dimensions. String theory - which attempts to unify the workings of all forces in nature, needs as many as eleven, to explain the workings of the smallest particles But in the early nineteenth century, even the fifth dimension was revolutionary. Thinking about what it would look like required a lot of thinking and calc...

In 1954, physicist and nuclear expert Hendrik Brinkman brought a promising PhD student to Groningen. At least, that's what he thought. It turned out differently: Finnish Runar Gåsström was investigated by almost every secret service from the Western world. This episode was written by Christien Boomsma and researched by Hans Wilschut. Sound by Rob van der Wal. Voice by Tom Wilcox. Shownotes Wan...

In a state-of-the-art laboratory on Westersingel, physicists Herman Haga and Cornelis Wind threw themselves into a completely new field of research from 1895 onwards: X-rays. The mysterious rays that passed through clothes and skin had only just been discovered. The pair struggled for years until they achieved their big breakthrough. But no one believed them. * The laboratory of Herman Haga and Co...

Everyone knows Aletta Jacobs. Holland's first official female student in 1871. Holland's first female doctor and a fierce advocate of women's rights. But who knows Charlotte? The second student, but the first female pharmacist? Older than Aletta, but someone who later managed to evade what society expected of her? She deserves them to be more than just 'the sister of...' This episode was written a...

Three Scottish students arrived at Groningen's academy in 1683. The three members of a strict conservative movement were persecuted in their homeland. They shared a dream: to become ministers so they could preach and baptise in Scotland. That dream became a reality for one of the three: Scotland's James Renwick was confirmed, despite loud protests from his opponents. You can still visit th...

Sibrandus Stratingh became known as the inventor of the very first electric car. But the Groningen chemist and inventor was also responsible for the first ‘ordinary’ car. Because that is what you can rightly call the steam engine that drove through Groningen in 1834 with Stratingh at the driving seat. Nothing has survived of Stratingh's steam car. But the Groningen university museum does have anot...

In the eighteenth century, the debate about differences between white people and people of colour was in full swing. For instance, there were white scientists who believed that people of colour must have black blood, or black brains. Moreover, many of these theories were used to justify slavery. The anatomist Petrus Camper thought otherwise. During his stay in Groningen, he performed public dissec...

World War II marked the sudden end of the student life of hundreds of Groningen youths. Among them was Reint Dijkema: a medical student who not only became a prominent member of the Groningen resistance, but was also responsible for the liquidation of Jew hunter Jan Annes Elsinga on New Year's Eve 1943. In front of Jozef Israelsstraat 16a in Groningen lies a Stolperstein, bearing Reint Dijkema...