Short answers, pulled from the story.
Rice University was established in 1912 and named after William Marsh Rice, a Massachusetts businessman who made his fortune in Texas real estate, railroad development, and cotton trading. Rice had planned the institute in 1891, earmarking most of his $4.6 million estate for its creation upon his death.
William Marsh Rice was found dead on the morning of the 23rd of September 1900, at age 84, after his valet Charles F. Jones administered chloroform while he slept. Rice's lawyer Albert T. Patrick was convicted of murder in 1901 for conspiring to steal the estate through a forged will; he was pardoned in 1912. Rice's Houston attorney Captain James A. Baker helped expose the fraud and direct the estate toward founding the institute.
Edgar Odell Lovett visited 78 institutions of higher learning across the world between 1908 and 1909 before finalizing plans for Rice. He was particularly impressed by the architectural uniformity of the University of Pennsylvania and the residential college system at Cambridge University, both of which he incorporated into Rice's design.
Ph.D. student Raymond Johnson became the first Black student admitted to Rice in 1963. The university's board filed a lawsuit that year to amend its original charter, which had restricted admission to white students. The charter was officially amended in 1964, and the trustees won a separate lawsuit in 1966 to void the racial language in the founding trust entirely.
Rice's baseball team won the 2003 College World Series, defeating Stanford, which remains the university's only national championship in a team sport. The victory made Rice the smallest school in 51 years to win a national championship at the highest collegiate level of baseball.
Beer Bike is Rice University's most prominent student event, described as a combination intramural bicycle race and drinking competition dating back to 1957. Each residential college fields men's, women's, and alumni teams, and the event begins with what some estimate to be the largest annual water balloon fight in the world.