The Boat Race, also known as the "University Boat Race" and "The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race", is a rowing race between Oxford University Boat Club and Cambridge University Boat Club each spring on the River Thames in London. The course (map pictured), which is 4 miles 374 yards long (6,779 metres), runs from Putney to Mortlake, passing Hammersmith and Barnes. The clubs' presidents toss a coin before the race for the right to choose which side of the river (station) they will row on: the north station ("Middlesex") has the advantage of the first and last bends, and the south ("Surrey") station the longer middle bend. Members of both teams are traditionally known as "blues" and each boat as a "Blue Boat", with Cambridge in light blue and Oxford dark blue. The first race was in 1829 and it has been held annually since 1856, with the exception of the two world wars. The 2012 race was won by Cambridge, after an interruption by a protestor swimming across the river into the path of the boats. As of 2014 Cambridge have won the race 81 times and Oxford 78 times, with one dead heat. The event is a popular one, not only with the alumni of the universities, but also with rowers in general and the public. (Full article...)

J. R. R. Tolkien was a British writer and university professor, best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, also at Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, with whom he shared membership in the Oxford literary discussion group the "Inklings". In addition to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's published fiction includes The Silmarillion and other posthumously published books about what he called a legendarium, a connected body of tales, fictional histories, invented languages, and other literary essays about an imagined world called Arda, and Middle-earth. Most of these works were compiled from Tolkien's notes by his son Christopher Tolkien. The enduring popularity and influence of Tolkien's works have established him as the "father of modern fantasy literature". Tolkien's other published fiction includes stories not directly related to the legendarium, some of them originally told to his children. (more...)

St Cross College was established by the university in 1965 to cater for the growing numbers of graduate students and academics who lacked a college affiliation; Wolfson College was set up in the 1960s for this reason as well. St Cross has approximately 400 graduate students at any one time, studying for degrees in all subjects. There is a strong emphasis on international diversity, with 67 % of the students from outside the UK. This is reflected in the college motto Ad quattuor cardines mundi ("to the four corners of the earth"). The Fellowship (led by the Master Sir Mark Jones, formerly Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum) is similarly diverse and represents a broad range of academic disciplines in the sciences and the arts. The college was originally established at a site on St Cross Road, near St Cross Church; it moved to a site owned by Pusey House in the centre of Oxford, on St Giles' Street, in 1981. The buildings, by the Gothic revival architect Temple Moore, date from between 1911 and 1926, with a new wing added in 1993. Alumni include the philosopher Alan Carter, the Olympic gold medallist Tim Foster, the historian R. Joseph Hoffmann, and the writer Hermione Lee. (Full article...)