Let p > 3 be a prime, and let Rₚ be the set of rational numbers whose denominator is not divisible by p. Let Pₙ(x) be the Legendre polynomials. In this paper we mainly show that for m,n,t ∈ Rₚ with m≢ 0 (mod p), $P_{[p/6]}\left(t\right)\equiv -(3/p){\sum }_{x=0}^{p-1}((x³-3x+2t)/p)\left(modp\right)$ and $\left({\sum }_{x=0}^{p-1}((x³+mx+n)/p)\right)²\equiv ((-3m)/p){\sum }_{k=0}^{[p/6]}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k}{k}\right)\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{3k}{k}\right)\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{6k}{3k}\right){((4m³+27n²)/\left(12³·4m³\right))}^k\left(modp\right)$, where (a/p) is the Legendre symbol and [x] is the greatest integer function. As an application we solve some conjectures of Z. W. Sun and the author concerning ${\sum }_{k=0}^{p-1}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k}{k}\right)\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{3k}{k}\right)\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{6k}{3k}\right)/m^k\left(modp²\right)$, where m is an integer not divisible by p.

Let R be a ring with 1 ≠ 0. The level s(R) of R is the least integer n such that -1 is a sum of n squares in R provided such an integer exists, otherwise one defines the level to be infinite. In this survey, we give an overview on the history and the major results concerning the level of rings and some related questions on sums of squares in rings with finite level. The main focus will be on levels of fields, of simple noncommutative rings, in particular division rings, and of arbitrary commutative...