About Stanford
University Milestones
Stanford Through the Years
1824 | March 9 | Leland Stanford born |
1828 | Aug. 25 | Jane Lathrop Stanford born |
1861 | Sept. 4 | Leland Stanford elected governor of California |
1868 | May 14 | Leland Stanford Jr. born |
1869 | May 10 | Leland Stanford drives Gold Spike at Promontory, Utah, for the first transcontinental railroad |
1884 | March 13 | Leland Stanford Jr. dies at age 15 |
1885 | Jan. 28 | Leland Stanford elected U.S. senator from California |
Nov. 11 | Founding Grant of the university executed | |
1887 | May 14 | Cornerstone of the university laid |
1891 | March 22 | David Starr Jordan accepts Leland Stanford's offer to become the university's first president |
May 14 | Cornerstone of the museum laid | |
Oct. 1 | Opening Day of the university; 555 students registered the first year | |
1892 | March 19 | First Big Game with Cal |
June 27 | Hopkins Marine Station established on Monterey Bay | |
1893 | June 21 | Leland Stanford dies |
1894 | May 30 | First Ph.D. awarded |
1895 | May 29 | Pioneer Class graduates, including Herbert Hoover |
1896 | April 4 | First women's intercollegiate basketball game |
1899 | May 31 | Amendment to Founding Grant limits number of women students to 500 |
1903 | Jan. 25 | Memorial Church dedicated |
1905 | Feb. 28 | Jane Lathrop Stanford dies |
1906 | April 18 | Great San Francisco Earthquake causes extensive damage |
1908 | Oct. 30 | Cooper Medical College transferred to Stanford |
Dec. 18 | School of Law organized | |
1913 | May 23 | School of Medicine organized |
Aug. 1 | John Casper Branner takes office as second president | |
1916 | Jan. 1 | Ray Lyman Wilbur takes office as third president |
1917 | April 27 | School of Education organized |
Thomas Welton Art Gallery completed | ||
1919 | June 20 | Hoover War Collection (now Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace) established |
July 14 | Main Library opens | |
1921 | May 23 | Honor Code adopted |
1925 | May 15 | School of Engineering organized |
Sept. 30 | Graduate Business School opens | |
1930 | Jan. 1 | First round of golf at the Stanford Golf Course |
1933 | May 11 | Board of Trustees resolution allows for enrollment of more than 500 women students |
1937 | Frank Lloyd Wright's Hanna House constructed | |
1941 | June 16-20 | University's 50th anniversary celebrated and Hoover Tower dedicated |
1943 | Sept. 1 | Donald B. Tresidder takes office as fourth president |
1946 | Creative Writing Program founded by Wallace Stegner | |
1947 | Jan. 6 | First broadcast of campus radio station KSU (later KZSU) |
School of Mineral Sciences (now Earth Sciences) organized | ||
1948 | Sept. 1 | Schools of Biological Sciences, Humanities and Physical Sciences and Social Sciences merged into School of Humanities and Sciences |
1949 | April 1 | Wallace Sterling takes office as fifth president |
1951 | Oct. 1 | First research park lease signed with Varian Associates |
1952 | April 1 | Biology Professor Douglas Whitaker becomes first provost |
Nov. 6 | Physics Professor Felix Bloch becomes Stanford's first Nobel laureate | |
1958 | June 24 | First overseas campus opened near Stuttgart, Germany |
1959 | August | Planning begins for the radio telescope called "the Dish" |
Sept. 17 | School of Medicine building dedicated | |
1965 | Jan. 1 | Computer Science Department founded |
1967 | Sept. 9 | Stanford Linear Accelerator Center dedicated, now called the SLAC National Accelerator Center |
1968 | Sept. 12 | Inaugural session, Senate of the Academic Council |
Dec. 1 | Kenneth Pitzer takes office as sixth president | |
1970 | Sept. 24 | Richard Lyman takes office as seventh president |
1973 | Jan. 9 | University trustees designate Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve |
1974 | Feb. 11 | B. Gerald Cantor donates his collection of Rodin sculptures |
1980 | Aug. 1 | Donald Kennedy takes office as eighth president |
1989 | Oct. 17 | Loma Prieta earthquake causes extensive damage |
1992 | Sept. 1 | Gerhard Casper takes office as ninth president |
1998 | September | Stanford Alumni Association integrated into the university |
1999 | January | The Leland Stanford Jr. Museum reopens as part of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts |
2000 | May 2 | The foothills surrounding "the Dish" become a habitat conservation area |
Oct. 20 | John Hennessy is inaugurated as Stanford's10th president | |
2005 | Dec. 31 | Campaign for Undergraduate Education raises more than $1 billion |
2011 | April 15 | Stanford earns its 100th NCAA team national title. |
2012 | Feb. 8 | The Stanford Challenge fundraising campaign raises $6.2 billion |
2014 | Sept. 21 | The Anderson Collection at Stanford University opens |
2015 | October | Stanford launches its 125th anniversary celebration |
This page last modified Oct 26, 2015.