Oxford, founded in the 10th century,
is home to the oldest university in the English-speaking world.
Its university was born back in the early Middle Ages,
and ever since the first homework was assigned,
the university of Oxford's graduates
have helped to shape Western civilization.
It brags that its teachers and alumni include
a couple dozen prime ministers,
over 50 Nobel Prize winners, and nearly a dozen saints.
Today, it's a thriving town of 160,000 -- part industry,
part university, and part bedroom community for Londoners.
It's a lively town filled with fun and energy
during both the academic term,
when you'll see students everywhere,
or during summer break.
We're here in July, when tourists outnumber the students.
Like in Cambridge, the river is filled with tourists
still working on their punting skills.
-Oh, we're going to smash.
Ooh. -Ah!
-Oxford's main drag, High Street,
is lined with both shops and colleges.
Again, it's a mix that illustrates
that town-gown division.
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There's been a tension between
the privileged university population
and the hardscrabble regular people of Oxford
for over 800 years.
In fact, it was a town-gown spat back in 1209
that drove a group of professors and students out of Oxford
and to the more welcoming town of Cambridge,
where they helped to found that rival university.
The historic heart of Oxford University
is its Old Schools Quad[rangle].
In the courtyard of its main library,
the quad is surrounded by the university's
first set of purpose-built classrooms
each marked with the original curriculum --
metaphysics, astronomy, music, moral philosophy, and so on.
Oxford, like Cambridge,
is designed on the collegiate system.
While each of the many colleges
nurtures its students in its own way,
the university provides the curriculum,
and while students live and study
and are mentored in their respective colleges,
it's here in the university buildings that they go to class,
are tested, and enjoy the great ceremonial events
that come with being a student at Oxford.
To imagine studying here in the 1400s,
pop into the Divinity School
to see the university's first formal classroom.
Here, under this impressive fan-vaulted ceiling,
the mission of higher education was particularly respected.
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Upstairs is Duke Humphrey's library.
In those days, libraries were placed above classrooms
for maximum sunlight and minimum moisture.
It's a world of books dating back to the Middle Ages
stacked neatly under a painted wooden ceiling.
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Books were considered so precious
that many were actually chained to the desk.
Of course, there are plenty of modern buildings, too.
In a wing of the university's fabled Bodleian Library,
visitors are free to peruse its treasures gallery,
a literary treasure chest
celebrating the genius of Oxford over the centuries.
You'll see a Shakespeare first folio, 18 plays from 1623;
an original score of Handel's "Messiah" written in 1741;
a copy of the Magna Carta from 1217,
when King John was forced
to grant his nobility certain rights,
opening the door to democracy.
It seems this copy was nibbled on by a mouse.
Fancy meal.
♪♪
Across the street is the Museum of the History of Science.
It's filled with scientific equipment
that the scholars of Oxford used to change our world.
There's chemistry, the 18th-century boom
in the study of oxygen and other gases.
Medicine -- after 1850, anesthetics and antiseptics
made major surgery more survivable.
Microscopes helped scholars observe
and tell them unseen worlds.
Science enjoyed the support of England's royalty.
King George III had his own ornate microscope
made of silver in 1770,
and Einstein's chalkboard still features
his hand-scrawled equations from 1931.
Obviously, from the last four lines,
the universe is expanding.
Like at Cambridge, you can visit many of Oxford's colleges.
Magdalen College, where C.S. Lewis taught, is the prettiest.
Established in 1458,
its cloister is a monastic-feeling square
ringed by the dining hall, chapel, and student dorms.
The grounds are meticulously kept,
as if to inspire Magdalen students to excellence.
Christ Church is Oxford's grandest college,
with the most esteemed list of alumni.
♪♪
It was founded by King Henry VIII
back in the 16th century on the site of an old monastery.
While it still has a close connection
with the royal family, it's most popular these days
because scenes from the "Harry Potter" movies were filmed here.
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"Harry Potter" fans love the dining hall.
The grand hall, with its splendid hammerbeam ceiling,
is ringed with portraits of alumni gazing down,
as if wondering, "Who is Harry Potter?"