Short answers, pulled from the story.
Virginia Military Institute was founded on the 11th of November 1839, when it formally separated from Washington College. It was established as America's first state-sponsored military college, authorized by the Virginia legislature in 1836.
On the 15th of May 1864, 247 VMI cadets fought at the Battle of New Market after marching 80 miles overnight from Lexington. Five cadets were killed in action and five more died later from wounds; VMI suffered fifty-five total casualties. The American Battlefield Trust recognizes this as the only time in U.S. history when the student body of an operating college fought as an organized unit in pitched combat.
George C. Marshall, VMI class of 1901, was the top U.S. Army general during World War II, the Army's first five-star general, and the only career military officer ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received in 1953. Winston Churchill called him the "Architect of Victory" and "the noblest Roman of them all."
VMI enrolled its first female cadets in August 1997, following a 7-1 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the 26th of June 1996, in United States v. Virginia that found it unconstitutional for a publicly funded school to exclude women. VMI was the last U.S. military college to admit women, and the Board of Visitors had voted 9-8 to comply before Congress passed a resolution protecting the school's ROTC programs.
The Ratline is a six-month initiation period for new cadets, called "Rats," at VMI. During this period, Rats walk prescribed routes in strict attention posture called "straining," sleep on foam mats instead of beds, and are not permitted to watch television or listen to music outside academic settings. The experience culminates in Breakout, a ceremony that formally welcomes Rats into the VMI community as fourth-class cadets.
In October 2020, Governor Ralph Northam and five other senior Virginia officials wrote to the VMI Board of Visitors citing a "clear and appalling culture of ongoing structural racism," following reports from students of lynching threats, social media attacks, and staff promoting Lost Cause history. An independent report by the law firm Barnes and Thornburg later concluded VMI had "maintained and allowed a racist and sexist culture." Superintendent Peay resigned on the 26th of October 2020, and in 2021 the board appointed Cedric T. Wins as VMI's first Black superintendent.