Riots, Keggers, and the Clap

College students and alcohol have mixed poorly for decades. Whether rioting, spiking “near beer,” or binge drinking, drunken students have proved a difficult problem for colleges to control. Here is a look at alcohol's hold on campuses from the mid-19th century to today.

1840  Princeton University

Alcohol-fueled student riots were common. At Princeton University, a drunken student saw the university’s president through a window and decided to shoot at him with a gun, barely missing him. At the University of Virginia, a student shot and killed a professor who asked drunken students to simmer down. The Virginia incident sparked the adoption two years later of an “honor system,” which still exists today.