Kent State University, Ohio, USA
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Kent State University is a college that was established in 1910. It is located about ten minutes north of Akron, Ohio which is smack dead in the middle of nowhere. Kent State is also well known for its school of fashion.
Researchers in KSU invented Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), which are in all sorts of useful things like digital watches, laptop computer screens, and mobile phones.
Famous alumni include the actor Michael Keaton and talk show host Arsenio Hall. Famous near-alumni include Drew Carey, the actor, who dropped out.
No one cares about any of that.
All anyone cares about is 4 May, 1970, when several National Guardsmen shot and killed four students during a Vietnam War protest. Two of the students weren't actually involved in the protest, they were just walking from class. The shooting was a pretty big event - all colleges in Ohio were shut down for several days.
While is was a bad day for students, it was an excellent day for photographers and newscasters, who flocked to the scene and thoroughly exploited the situation.
So outraged were seminal '60s supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young that immediately on hearing about the tragedy they penned 'Ohio', a vociferous attack on the US government's role in the whole Vietnam debacle.