The Gold Rush begins.

The state legislature decides to establish a college to teach agriculture, mining, and mechanical arts using federal land grants.

The College of California merges with the state college, donating its 160-acre campus site in Berkeley (pictured) to the State of California.

The University of California opens its doors in Oakland.

The College of Letters, now the College of Letters & Science, is established.

Henry Durant, a Congregational minister and a founder of the College of California, becomes the first president of the University of California.

Regent Edward Tompkins’ gift establishes the university’s first endowed chair, one that supported learning in oriental languages and literature.

Daniel Coit Gilman is appointed the second president of the University of California.

Berkeley’s first graduating class charters the Cal Alumni Association to promote “good fellowship and kindly feelings among its members and the fostering of liberal and scientific culture on the Pacific Coast.”

The University of California graduates its first class and moves into new quarters — North and South Halls — in Berkeley. Enrollment stands at 199 students.

A bequest from James Lick (pictured) finances the university’s first scientific research facility, an observatory on Mt. Hamilton.

Oakland businessman A. K. P. Harmon provides the funds to build Harmon Gymnasium (pictured). In 1932, Edwards Fields and Stadium are named after his son-in-law, math professor George C. Edwards, Class of 1873.

Henry Douglas Bacon donates books, works of art, and funds that are matched by the State to build the Bacon Art and Library Building (pictured).

William Carey Jones teaches a course in Roman law, the seedbed for Berkeley Law.

Cal and Stanford play the first Big Game in San Francisco. The final score is Stanford 14, Cal 10.

Regent Jacob Reinstein and drawing instructor Bernard Maybeck begin to discuss improving the campus.

Renowned English professor Charles Mills Gayley composes the song, “The Golden Bear,” and the Golden Bear becomes the mascot of the university.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst funds an international competition to develop a campus architectural plan.

Architect Julia Morgan receives a degree in civil engineering. She later designs three campus buildings: the Hearst Greek Theatre, Girton Hall, and Hearst Gymnasium.

Levi Strauss matches funds for 28 scholarships created by the state legislature, launching a longstanding philanthropic relationship between his family and the university.

Cora Jane Flood provides funds to establish the College of Commerce, now the Walter A. Haas School of Business.

The Stanford Axe (pictured) first appears at a Cal-Stanford baseball game in San Francisco.

Benjamin Ide Wheeler becomes the eighth president of the University of California.

The Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology is founded.

John Galen Howard begins to execute the campus architectural plan and establishes the Department of Architecture, now part of the College of Environmental Design.

Commencement is held for the first time in the new Hearst Greek Theatre, a gift of William Randolph Hearst. President Theodore Roosevelt delivers the commencement address.

Students from the Classes of 1907 and 1908 build the “Big C” on Charter Hill (pictured).

Hubert Howe Bancroft’s collection of manuscripts and books is added to the university’s collection.

Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt gives funds for a building to house the Department of Jurisprudence, now called Berkeley Law.

Annie Montague Alexander provides support to establish the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Joseph P. Grinnell is appointed its first director.

Sather Gate is built, funded by the Jane K. Sather Trust. In 1914, Sather Tower, known as the Campanile, is completed. The Campanile’s chimes ring for the first time on November 2, 1917.

Charles Franklin Doe’s bequest finances construction of Doe Memorial Library.

Gilbert N. Lewis comes to UC Berkeley to head the College of Chemistry.

Joseph C. Rowell, Class of 1874, retires after 44 years as the university librarian. At Rowell’s memorial service in 1938, President Wheeler notes that he was the last living link to the university’s founders.

Andy Smith’s unbeaten Wonder Team wins the first of four Pacific Coast Conference titles and goes on to win the Rose Bowl in 1921.

May T. Morrison donates an extensive book collection and provides funds for the Morrison Library in Doe Memorial Library.

A statewide campaign brings $1 million in contributions to build California Memorial Stadium, originally dedicated to students who lost their lives in World War I.

The School of Education, founded in 1892, finds a home in Haviland Hall, built with a gift from Hannah N. Haviland.

William Randolph Hearst gives funds for the Hearst Gymnasium for Women in memory of his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst.

Contributions from A.P. Giannini and others support the first endowed chair of Italian culture. Giannini also provides funds to erect Giannini Hall, the home of the Rausser College of Natural Resources.

Cal Crew (pictured) wins the Olympic gold medal for the United States. They repeat this feat in 1932 and 1948.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. donates $1.75 million for the purchase of land for and construction of International House, which opens in 1930.

Mary McNear Bowles (pictured), Class of 1882, the widow of alum and regent Philip Bowles, gives the funds to build the university’s first student residence hall for men. Now co-ed, Bowles Hall is the only residential college at Berkeley.

Lillie Hitchcock Coit (left) establishes the Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Chair in memory of her parents. Her father’s 1885 gift endowed the university’s prestigious Hitchcock lecture series.

Robert Gordon Sproul, Class of 1913, becomes the 11th president of the University of California.

Ernest O. Lawrence receives the Nobel Prize in Physics, the first Nobel Prize to be awarded to UC Berkeley faculty, and the first ever given to a professor at a public university. It is the first of 26 Nobel Prizes to be awarded to Berkeley faculty.

Oski (pictured) makes his first appearance at a rally for first-year students.

The School of Optometry is established.

The first women’s dormitory, Stern Hall, opens. Funds were donated by Rosalie Meyer Stern (pictured right, in white hat). Her husband was Sigmund Stern, Class of 1879.

The California Alumni Foundation is established to encourage private gifts, trusts, and bequests for the benefit of UC Berkeley. It is renamed the UC Berkeley Foundation in 1975.

Clara Clemens Samossoud donates the Mark Twain Papers to Berkeley.

Clark Kerr becomes the first chancellor of the UC Berkeley campus.

Alumni House opens as an on-campus home for alums, funded by the Cal Alumni Association.

The student humor magazine, The Pelican, gets its own building with a gift from the first editor, Earle C. Anthony, Class of 1903. The Pelican Building is now the Graduate Student Assembly Building.

A bequest from Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Hertz finances the construction of the Hertz Memorial Hall of Music.

The Strawberry Canyon Recreational Facilities complex opens with funds donated by Walter A. Haas, his wife, Elise, and her aunt, Lucie Stern.

The new Student Union Building is completed with the help of gifts from two regents, Edwin W. Pauley and Edward H. Heller. The building is renamed for Martin Luther King Jr. in 1985.

The Free Speech Movement brings UC Berkeley to the center of a national debate when students, including Mario Savio, hold demonstrations against rules prohibiting political activities on campus.

UC Berkeley ranks No. 1 in the nation for the quality of its graduate programs and maintains this ranking in each decade through the 2010s.

German expressionist painter Hans Hofmann (painting pictured), makes a gift of paintings and funds to help launch the University Art Museum, known today as the Berkeley Art Museum.

The Lawrence Hall of Science, a hands-on museum and innovative teaching center, is founded in honor of Ernest O. Lawrence.

The family of Isadore Zellerbach provides funds for Zellerbach Hall, the university’s first comprehensive performing arts center.

The School of Public Policy is established. It is named for Richard ’41 and Rhoda ’46 Goldman in 1997 in honor of their gift to the school.

The Bechtel Engineering Center, a gift of Laura and Stephen D. Bechtel, Sr. and other friends of Cal, opens.

Poet Czeslaw Milosz, UC Berkeley’s first Nobelist outside of the sciences, receives the medal in literature.

Cal beats Stanford with “The Play,” a five-lateral kickoff return for a touchdown as time runs out.

The Spieker Aquatics Complex (pictured) opens with the lead gift made by Ned ’66 and Carol ’66 Spieker.

Gerard Debreu becomes the first of six faculty members to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Fifteen computer companies contribute to development of a computer-aided electrical engineering design center in Cory Hall.

Former Governor and Mrs. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown become the first major donors to UC Berkeley’s campaign to modernize campus biology facilities.

Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman (pictured) leads the university’s first campuswide comprehensive fundraising campaign, Keeping the Promise, which raises $469 million.

For the first time, no ethnic group forms a majority among undergraduates at UC Berkeley.

Chang-Lin Tien becomes the university’s eighth chancellor and the first Asian American to head a major U.S. research university.

A new university health center, the Tang Center, opens, thanks to a gift from the Tang Family Foundation in honor of Hong Kong businessman Jack Tang.

Soda Hall (pictured), a new computer science center named for Y. Charles and Helen C. Soda, opens. More than two-thirds of undergraduates now enroll in a computer science course.

The Valley Life Sciences Building is renovated as part of a campaign to update facilities for the biological sciences. The project is funded through the Wayne and Gladys Valley Foundation.

The mini-campus of the Haas School of Business opens. The school is renamed the Walter A. Haas School of Business in memory of Haas Sr., and in recognition of lead gifts to the project (pictured: son Walter A. Haas Jr.).

Glenn Seaborg (pictured), Nobel laureate, professor, and former chancellor, becomes the only living person to have an element (seaborgium) named after them.

Robert M. Berdahl becomes chancellor and takes over leadership of the Campaign for the New Century. The campaign raises $1.44 billion in private support, the most ever raised by a public university at the campaign’s conclusion in 2001.

Tan Kah Kee Hall, named for the industrialist and philanthropist, provides laboratory space for chemistry and chemical engineering research.

The Golden Bears have a new home in the Walter A. Haas, Jr. Pavilion. This “new Harmon Gym” is twice as large but retains the spirit of the old building.

The Hearst Memorial Mining Building (pictured) reopens after a four-year renovation and seismic improvement financed by public and private funds.

The university honors the late Chang-Lin Tien by naming the Center for East Asian Studies after him.

The Association of Research Libraries ranks the University Library as the top public research university library in North America.

The university dedicates the Builders of Berkeley monument on the terrace of Doe Memorial Library in honor of the university’s leading benefactors.

Robert J. Birgeneau becomes UC Berkeley’s ninth chancellor and commits to improving access and excellence during his tenure.

Professor George Smoot receives the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in imaging the early universe.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation makes a landmark gift of $113 million, including a challenge grant of $110 million to endow 100 new faculty chairs. The campus fulfills the challenge two years earlier than anticipated.

Stanley Hall (pictured), a state-of-the-art bioscience research facility and headquarters for the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, also known as QB3-Berkeley, opens. It brings together preeminent bioengineers, biologists, chemists, and physicists under a single roof.

UC Berkeley, in partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is selected to lead the Energy Biosciences Institute, an unprecedented green energy effort.

With a lead naming gift, the C.V. Starr East Asian Library (pictured) opens, making it the first freestanding structure at a United States university erected solely for East Asian collections.

The Campaign for Berkeley launches with a $3 billion goal aimed at boosting the level of private support to build lasting endowment funding.

The Bancroft Library reopens, following a $64 million seismic retrofit and renovation funded by the State of California and more than 700 donors, creating an elegantly upgraded home for books and special collections.

Sutardja Dai Hall opens as the new home of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society or CITRIS.

Richard C. Blum Hall is unveiled, creating a new home for the Blum Center for Developing Economies that was established to seek innovative solutions to global poverty.

The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, which became part of UC Berkeley in 2010, opens in a renovated home in downtown Berkeley, thanks to lead donors Warren Hellman ’55, Tad Taube, and the Koret Foundation.

Propelled by a lead $40 million gift, the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences (pictured) is dedicated. It serves as a nexus for research exploring the root causes of diseases.

Professor Saul Perlmutter wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for leading the team that discovered the universe’s accelerating expansion.

The renovated California Memorial Stadium opens and is rededicated to all Californians who sacrificed their lives in service to the nation.

The Campaign for Berkeley concludes, having raised a record $3.13 billion, reinforcing UC Berkeley’s stature as a world-class university.

Nicholas B. Dirks becomes the university’s 10th chancellor. He is known for his commitment to accessible, high-quality undergraduate education and innovation across disciplines.

Randy W. Schekman, professor of molecular and cell biology, wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in revealing the machinery that regulates the transport and secretion of proteins in our cells.

UC Berkeley and UCSF launch the Innovative Genomics Initiative, backed by a $10 million gift from the Li Ka Shing Foundation. At its core is a revolutionary technology discovered by Professor Jennifer Doudna, the initiative’s first executive director.

The campus puts the finishing touches on its new ASUC Student Union, part of a $223 million project to renovate and revitalize Lower Sproul Plaza.

The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive opens at its new location in downtown Berkeley. The 83,000-square-foot facility reimagines a former printing plant into a dramatic new structure.

The Legends Aquatic Center, funded primarily by private donors, opens with a splash. The $19 million Olympic-grade facility has a 52-meter pool and a three-story diving tower.

Carol T. Christ (pictured) is named Berkeley’s 11th chancellor. The university’s first female chancellor is a renowned scholar of Victorian literature. Christ held numerous leadership and teaching positions at UC Berkeley and later served as president of Smith College.

Connie & Kevin Chou Hall opens its doors. The $68 million space includes 80,000 square feet of state-of-the-art classrooms and flexible learning spaces. It was funded entirely by Berkeley Haas’s dedicated alums and friends.

UC Berkeley celebrates its sesquicentennial on March 23, 2018. Guided by the motto, Fiat Lux, the university continues to light the way for generations of brilliant students.

The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life receives the full works of legendary Russian-born American photographer Roman Vishniac (1897–1990) (pictured). Gifted by his daughter, Mara Vishniac Kohn, the collection includes over 6,500 photographic prints, 10,000 negatives, and 40 albums of slides.

A $20 million matching gift from the Hellman Fellows Fund creates the Society of Hellman Fellows, which will double the number of fellowships awarded to early-career faculty each year through the Hellman Fellows Program as well as support it in perpetuity. The program was established in 1995 by F. Warren and Chris Hellman.

The Weill Neurohub launches with a $106 million gift from the Weill Family Foundation. A collaboration between UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and the University of Washington, the center will focus on finding new treatments for brain disease.

Eli Leon, an Oakland-based art scholar, gifts nearly 3,000 quilts to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Representing works by more than 400 African American artists, it is believed to be the largest collection of its kind ever assembled.

The university launches Light the Way: The Campaign for Berkeley. In 2022, with a year remaining to meet its $6 billion goal, an anonymous gift to support the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the Institute for Governmental Studies brings the total over the finish line. The campaign concludes at the end of 2023.

The university commemorates the 150th anniversary of the UC Board of Regents’ resolution to open the university’s doors to women “on equal terms” with men. The yearlong celebration, titled 150 Years of Women at Berkeley, recognizes the countless women who have studied, worked, taught, and researched at Berkeley since then.

The College of Natural Resources receives its largest-ever gift, $50 million, from former dean Gordon Rausser (pictured). The college is renamed in his honor. Professor Rausser’s commitment is the largest naming gift of any academic unit on campus at the time. The investment establishes three key endowed funds to provide long-term support of the college.

The COVID-19 pandemic forces the university to modify operations, but research units, faculty, administrators, and donors quickly mobilize to launch unprecedented breakthroughs in testing and potential vaccines and provide immediate support to students.

Biochemist Jennifer Doudna wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, sharing it with colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier for the co-development of CRISPR-Cas9, a genome editing breakthrough that has revolutionized biomedicine.

Reinhard Genzel, professor emeritus of physics and of astronomy, shares the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.

The Dr. Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Family Foundation pledges a historic $50 million to the UC Berkeley School of Optometry, the largest gift ever to a school of optometry in the country. The school is renamed the Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry and Vision Science.

Building on an anonymous gift of $252 million, UC Berkeley receives $75 million in additional gifts for a visionary new home for the Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society, leading to a September 2022 groundbreaking for the project. The Gateway (pictured) will reinforce the university’s position as a leader in computing and data science research and education.

David Card, a labor economist and professor of economics, shares his Nobel Prize for work that dramatically shifts understanding of inequality and the social and economic forces that affect low-wage workers.

The Bakar BioEnginuity Hub (pictured), the campus’s state-of-the-art home for bio-entrepreneurship, opens its doors. The remarkable facility, located in Woo Hon Fai Hall, pairs the Bakar Labs incubator with fellowships and programming for students and researchers, equipping STEM entrepreneurs with labs, offices, equipment, and shared community spaces.

Construction begins on the Helen Diller Anchor House, a 772-bed, apartment-style housing project for UC Berkeley transfer students that is being designed, built, and funded by the Helen Diller Foundation. It opened in 2024.

The College of Chemistry celebrates its 150th anniversary.

The first cohort of students supported by the African American Initiative (AAI) graduates from UC Berkeley. The AAI scholarship is a valuable tool to help draw African American students who have been admitted but would otherwise choose to go elsewhere, helping to transform the student population and create a more welcoming, inclusive campus.

Berkeley becomes an Asian American, Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution.

The UC Board of Regents votes to establish UC Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, the campus’s first new college in more than 50 years.

Berkeley Haas celebrates its 125th anniversary and recognizes Cora Jane Flood for her gift that established the school in 1898.

The Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry and Vision Science celebrates its 100th birthday with a host of centennial events throughout the year.

Berkeley is ranked the No. 1 university for producing Peace Corps volunteers over the past 20 years — more than 3,750 in all.

One of the largest capital campaigns launched by any public or private U.S. university, Light the Way: The Campaign for Berkeley ends with more than $7.37 billion raised, the largest total in history for any public university and for any university without a medical school.

The campus announces plans for the Bakar ClimatEnginuity Hub, a new space that will provide Berkeley innovators with the resources they need to launch successful companies in the burgeoning field of climate technology. The hub is scheduled to open in the 2027–28 academic year.

Rich Lyons ’82 (pictured) is named Berkeley’s 12th chancellor. The first undergraduate alum to be appointed chancellor, Lyons served from 2008–18 as dean of the Haas School of Business. In 2020, he became Berkeley’s first-ever chief officer of innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Grimes Engineering Center opens, adding more than 35,500 square feet and two floors to the former Bechtel Engineering Center. Funded entirely by philanthropy, it provides a welcoming space for engineering students to gather and collaborate.