Short answers, pulled from the story.
Auburn University was chartered on the 1st of February, 1856, as East Alabama Male College, a private Methodist-affiliated liberal arts institution. It was renamed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama in 1872 after becoming a land-grant institution, then Alabama Polytechnic Institute in 1899, before receiving its current name in 1960.
Harold A. Franklin was the first African-American student admitted to Auburn University, in 1964. He had to sue the university to gain entry to the graduate school and was initially denied a degree after completing his master's thesis; he was finally awarded his master's in history in 2020.
Auburn has produced three Heisman Trophy winners: Pat Sullivan in 1971, Bo Jackson in 1985, and Cam Newton in 2010. Auburn is the only school where John Heisman coached that has produced multiple Heisman winners.
The most widely cited origin traces to Auburn's 1892 game against Georgia, when a Civil War veteran in the stands brought a pet eagle he had found on a battlefield. The eagle flew free during the game as Auburn scored the winning touchdown, then dove to the ground and died at the game's end; Auburn fans called it an omen and adopted the phrase "War Eagle."
In November 2010, following Auburn's Iron Bowl victory over Alabama, an Alabama supporter poisoned the large live oaks at Toomer's Corner using the herbicide Spike 80DF. The 83-to-85-year-old trees did not survive and have been replaced several times, most recently in 2017 after a fire in 2016.
Auburn's College of Architecture created the nation's first interior architecture degree program and first dual Architecture and Interior Architecture degree. The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering launched the first Bachelor of Wireless Engineering degree in the United States in 2001. Auburn also received the nation's first FAA approval to operate an Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight School, in April 2015.