Word: phi
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...first Phi Beta Kappa Society came into existence December 5, 1776 at William and Mary in Virginia. It introduced all the ritual and mysticism employed by contemporary fraternities--an oath of secrecy, a badge, mottoes in Greek and Latin, a code of laws, an elaborate form of initiation, a seal, and a special hand-clasp...
Meetings, however, were devoted to debates and the reading of papers instead of to boisterous intake of alcohol. In that respect Phi Beta Kappa at its inception distinguished itself from the run of fraternities...
William and Mary's chapter didn't last long, though. It dissolved with the approach of Cornwallis' British troops after four years and 67 meetings. But one Elisha Parmele, a Harvard graduate, received characters for branch chapters at Yale and Harvard before the original Phi Bota Kappa went into extinction...
Harvard got its charter five days before another charter was voted to Yale. The Yale Phi Beta Kappa, however, was an active organization ten months before the Harvard branch organized. Which of the two chapters is the older is still a meet question...
...hocus pocus of Phi Beta Kappa meetings began to fade away in the 1830's largely as a result the work of the Harvard chapter's Edward Everett, Joseph Story, and John Quincy Adams. The Harvard chapter's change in policy probably saved Phi Beta Kappa from becoming nothing more than the oldest collegiate social organization in the United States...