The Boat Race is the annual rowing contest between England's two oldest and most famous universities.
Oxford and Cambridge University have been battling against each other over four-and-a-quarter miles on the River Thames for 175 years.
Two friends, Charles Merival who was at Cambridge, and Charles Wordsworth (nephew of the poet William Wordsworth), a student at Oxford, decided to hold a race between the universities.
On 12 March 1829, Cambridge challenged Oxford and a tradition was born.
However, by the time the two crews next met, they had abandoned Henley for London.
The race was initially held on the Thames from Westminster to Putney.
But because of overcrowding in the centre of the capital, the universities found a new location between Putney and Mortlake in 1845.
Within 11 years it became an annual event that has continued through to the 21st century - but for during the two World Wars.
Each year, the loser of the previous year's event challenges the winner to a new race.
In the early years of the Boat Race, the crews wore no distinguishing colours.
However, in 1836 Oxford selected dark blue to race in, the colour of their stroke-man's college (Christ Church), and Cambridge adopted the "duck egg blue" of Eton.
Cambridge are the more successful university, and in 1936 celebrated a record 13th consecutive win.
For their part Oxford won 10 in a row from 1976 and also racked up two nine race streaks - from 1861 to 1869 and again from 1890 to 1898.
But both crews have not always been able to make the finish.
Cambridge sank in 1859, and then suffered the embarrassment of going under water just a mile from the finish in 1978.
Their rivals have endured a similar fate.
Oxford sunk in 1925, and in 1951 they lost the rescheduled race after falling foul to rough waters in the initial clash.
Both boats went down in 1912 - a matter of weeks before the Titanic followed suit.
The remains of the boat now have pride of place in a Cambridge public house.
With about six million people expected to watch on BBC TV and an estimated worldwide audience of 500 million the race is a huge attraction.
The BBC first broadcast running commentary in 1927, and 11 years later covered the race on television for the first time.
The average time taken to complete the course is 20 minutes, but Cambridge holds the record of 16 minutes and 19 seconds, achieved in 1998.
The current score stands at 77 to Cambridge, 69 to Oxford, with one controversial dead heat in 1877.
Legend has it that the judge at the finish, "Honest John" Phelps, was asleep under a bush as the crews raced past.
When awakened and asked the result he said: "Dead heat to Oxford by four feet."