As one of the first public universities established in the early 19th century southwestern frontier of the United States, the University of Alabama has left a cultural imprint on the state, region and nation over the past two centuries. The school was a center of activity during the American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. The University of Alabama varsity football program (nicknamed the Crimson Tide), which was inaugurated in 1892, ranks as one of the ten winningest programs in US history.[7] In a 1913 speech then-president George H. Denny extolled the university as the "capstone of the public school system in the state [of Alabama]", lending the university its current nickname, The Capstone.