McGill University, Montreal

McGill University is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Canada. It was officially founded by royal charter issued by King George IV in 1821.

McGill is the oldest university in Montreal and one of just three English-language universities in Quebec. It is a public research institution that takes its name from Glaswegian merchant, James McGill, whose bequest in 1813 led to the formation of McGill College. In 1829 it was established as the nation’s first faculty of medicine.

McGill's main campus is set at the foot of Mount Royal in Downtown Montreal, with the second campus situated near fields and forested lands in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, also on the Montreal Island, 30 kilometres (18 miles) west of the main campus.

McGill has an alumni network of roughly 250,000 living in over 180 countries. These include singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, actor William Shatner and astronaut Dave Williams. It also boasts 12 Nobel Prize winners and 140 Rhodes Scholars, more than any other university in the country.

Eureka moments associated with McGill include the discovery that atoms can be divided, the first map of the brain’s motor cortex, and the invention of Plexiglas. McGill also lays claim to the invention of modern American football, hockey and basketball.

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