Ten facts you may not know about Bloomington, Indiana (2024)

1. Bloomington is nestled amid rolling hills and surrounded by state parks and national forests. The campus has been named one of the five most beautiful in the country, and the New York Times has designated Bloomington one of the nation's top 10 college towns.
2. Bloomington is 46 miles from Indianapolis, 222 miles from Chicago, 130 miles from Cincinnati, 223 miles from St. Louis, and 103 miles from Louisville. In fact, one-quarter of the U.S. population is within an easy day's drive of Bloomington.
3. Bloomington is a mecca for people who love music. Name a style of music, and chances are you can see it performed live in Bloomington. From operas at the university's world famous School of Music to jazz at a local club, Bloomington is a music lover's paradise.
4. Architecturally, southern Indiana is host to an amazing variety of styles. From the I. M. Pei designed Art Museum on campus to the internationally known buildings of Columbus ("Athens of the Plains"), Indiana, just 35 miles east, one can view examples of works by some of the world's most famous architects.
5. Bloomington was the site of the Academy Award-winning movie Breaking Away. Written by a former Bloomington resident, the movie illustrates one of the town's greatest passions, bicycling.
6. Bloomington is also home to the world famous Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
7. Bloomington has an incredible variety of restaurants, including Thai, Japanese, Greek, Moroccan, French, Tibetan, Yugoslavian, Indian, Afghani, West African, Mexican, Italian, Irish, Korean, and more than a dozen Chinese restaurants.
8. Bloomington has been the home of many entertainers. Perhaps the two most famous are current resident and Grammy-winning singer/songwriter John Mellencamp and legendary songwriter (and IU Law School alum) Hoagy Carmichael.
9. The first color television was manufactured in Bloomington. The essential component was invented by Bloomington resident Sarkes Tarzian, and RCA began producing the RCA CT-100 on March 25, 1954, at its plant on South Rogers Street. Fluoride toothpaste (Crest) was also invented in Bloomington.
10. And while basketball wasn't invented in Indiana, it was perfected here.

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