At 7:15 a.m., as the British approached the intersection where the predecessor to the Academy Building stood, the cobblers there paused from their task of making shoes for Rebels and took a few shots at the Redcoats, with no casualties on either side, according to several accounts.



The Academy would fare even worse, languishing for years thereafter, its assets seized by the British. “What a glorious prospect [the Academy was], before a barbarous invasion shattered our prospects,” one former student wrote at the time.

Secret society

Many have heard of Yale’s Skull and Bones. Others are still waiting to hear solid proof of UD’s so-called secret society: Petal and Thorn. According to researchers who are preoccupied with such matters, letters discovered in 1996 in the estate of A. Felix du Pont Jr. revealed that Petal and Thorn was founded in 1927 by du Pont’s friends at UD, with a mission statement to “have control of the politics” of the University through 10 influential seniors.

“We have much proof that people have talked about it. We have a reference file for it. But we have no proof that any such thing exists,” Gensel says.

Riots and fires

Considering UD’s reputation as a distinctly placid place, stories of unrest in the 1960s and 1970s seem more suited to a more notorious hotbed of radicalism. In fact, just two of the three most violent incidents from the era had anything to do with the Vietnam War; the other had more frolicsome origins.

In September 1968, amid ongoing campus opposition to the fighting, two students tossed four Molotov cocktails through a window at Mechanical Hall (then used by the ROTC), setting fire to clothing in a storage room. In April 1972, five firebombs were tossed through a window of University President E.A. Trabant’s office in the early hours, damaging the interior but causing no injuries.