For the third year in a row, students and faculty at the University of Illinois are celebrating “I Love Illinois” Week. The weeklong celebration highlights the University’s founding in 1867 and works to increase school pride and philanthropy on campus.

The 1867 Society teamed with several other campus organizations to host the first weeklong celebration in 2013. The 1867 Society is composed of students working to increase student philanthropy on campus and gets its name from the year the university was founded.

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“I Love Illinois” Week celebrates U of I’s founding 
I Love Illinois Week – 2015 Events

The 87th Academy Awards held last night in Hollywood featured multiple winners with Illinois connections.

Rapper and actor Common, who was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, took home an Oscar for his song “Glory” from the film “Selma,” a historical drama based on the 1965 voting rights marches in Alabama. Common also played James Bevel in the film.

Graham Moore won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on “Imitation Game.” Moore was raised on Chicago’s North Side.

The Oscar awards, made of Britannia metal and plated in copper, nickel silver and 24-karat gold, also have an Illinois connection. The statues are made at a factory in Chicago that provides statues for many awards shows.

Learn more:  
Academy Awards: List of winners
How to make an Oscar statue (CNN)

Chicago native John Grunsfeld will join an elite group of less than 90 astronauts when he is inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in May.

Grunsfeld has traveled on five space shuttle missions, performed eight spacewalks and worked on the Hubble Space Telescope on three different repair missions. He has spent time on the Endeavour, Atlantis, Discovery and Columbia space shuttles. 

The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame is located in Titusville, Fla., and is part of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Grunsfled is being inducted with fellow astronauts Steven Lindsey, Kent Rominger and Dr. M. Rhea Seddon.

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Chicago native to join Astronaut Hall of Fame (Chicago Tribune)

Thirty years ago this week, The Breakfast Club hit theaters across the country, becoming an instant hit at the box office and resonating with almost everyone who remembers their time in high school. 

The movie was set in the fictional Illinois town of Shermer, which was used as the backdrop of many of John Hughes’ movies. The film was shot at three suburban Chicago high schools: Maine North High School and Maine West High School in Des Plaines and Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook.

In honor of the thirty-year anniversary of the release of the film, select theaters across the country will show the movie on March 26 and March 31.

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The Breakfast Club - IMDb

Clyde Tombaugh was born in Streator in 1906. His interest in astronomy developed from looking through his uncle’s telescope as a child. Unsatisfied with store-bought telescopes, Tombaugh began building his own telescopes, one of which helped him accurately describe Jupiter and Mars.

Tombaugh earned a job at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona where he was tasked with photographing the night sky over several months and examining the photographs to try and find an unidentified moving point of light. After ten months of detailed research, Tombaugh discovered the planet on February 18, 1930 and named it Pluto. It was determined that Pluto was the ninth planet in our solar system and was classified so until 2006 when the plant was re-classified as a dwarf planet. 

In addition to discovering Pluto, Tombaugh also discovered 15 different asteroids and named them after himself, his wife, his children and grandchildren.

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Clyde Tombaugh
Academy of Achievement: Clyde Tombaugh