The university has a history of innovative thought, particularly in theology, in which the university is famous till today. Philipp Melanchthon (1497 - 1560), the prime mover in building the German school system and a chief figure in the Protestant Reformation, helped establish its direction. Among Tübingen's eminent students have been astronomer Johannes Kepler, poet Friedrich Hölderlin, and philosophers Friedrich Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The university rose to the height of its prominence in the middle of the 19th century with the teachings of poet and civic leader Ludwig Uhland and the Protestant theologian Ferdinand Christian Baur, whose beliefs and disciples became known as the "Tübingen School." The University of Tübingen also was the first German university to establish a faculty of natural sciences, in 1863. The first woman Nobel Prize winner in medicine in Germany also works in Tuebingen.
In the 20th century, Tübingen became dominated first by Marxist-Leninist philosophy and then by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime until the beginning of the Allied occupation in 1945. In 1970 the university was restructured into a series of independent departments of study and research after the manner of French universities. Currently, about 20000 students are enrolled, roughly one fourth of the total population of the city. Tuebingen is strong in social sciences. Tübingen is one of four major university towns in Germany; the other three are Marburg, Goettingen, and Heidelberg.