King's College London, one of the founding schools of the University of London, is one of the top 20 universities in the world. It is a well-known university in the Golden Triangle and Russell University Group, also known as KCL or King's. King's College London was founded by George IV and the Prime Minister Duke of Wellington in 1829, located in the elite area along the Thames in London. In 2005, The Guardian praised four universities in London at that time (King's College London, London School of Economics and Political Science, Imperial College London and University College London), claiming that their academic reputation in Britain could be comparable to that of Oxford and Cambridge. King's College is also the fourth oldest school in Britain, enjoying a world academic reputation. Among alumni and faculty, 12 Nobel Prize winners have been born. Thomas Hardy, a writer, john keats, a poet, and peter higgs, a giant of theoretical physics, are all graduates of King's College. The highest ranking in the world over the years is 10 (QS ranking, 2008/09). In the latest global university rankings, it ranks 19, ranking seventh in Europe (QS ranking, 20 15/ 16). In the UK government's 20 14 years' evaluation of REF research, 84% of the research at King's College got full marks of 4* and 3* (RAE was 6 1% in 2008), which was considered as "the world leader". [2] According to the 2006 "Times" excellent university discipline guide, music, dentistry, history, American studies, philosophy and western classical literature of King's College ranked in the top five in Britain.