Assemblies of like-minded men have existed since ancient times, and were of particular popularity in university campuses, bastions of intelligent, upper-class young men. Across Europe, school societies were called corporations (and in middle ages, “nations”), but the fellowship that inspired fraternities in America were the Masons, whose order was very prominent at around the time the first modern college fraternity formed in New York.

On this day, November 26, in 1825, nine undergraduates at Union College in Schenectady, New York, formed the Kappa Alpha Society out of an informal regular group meeting of The Philosophers, as they called themselves.

The Kappa Alpha society joined Sigma Phi and Delta Phi fraternities two years later to form the Union Triad of fraternities, largely writing the book on fraternity culture to come. The Fraternity counts among its members many prominent politicians, including several cabinet secretaries, and Thomas Allen, a House or Representatives member and builder of the first railroad west of the Mississippi. The two grandsons of Adolph Coors, founder of the eponymous brewing company, also came from Kappa Alpha.