Berkeley has a long and colorful history. Below is a brief chronology of the founding of the first University of California campus. For more detailed information on Berkeley’s history, consult the History section of the Berkeley home page. A summary of the history of the University as a whole can be found in the University of California Faculty Handbook.

1729 George Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne, philosopher and poet) arrives in America with hopes of founding a school for "aboriginal" Americans.

1842 Jose Domingo Peralta is deeded the land now known as Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville.

1853 Peralta sells the land where the University now stands for $82,000.

1855 In Oakland, the Contra Costa Academy, established two years earlier by missionaries, is incorporated as the College of California.

1860 The College of California trustees dedicate the school’s new site on the banks of Strawberry Creek.

1866 One of the College leaders, Frederick Billings, suggests that both the College and the city growing around it be named after Bishop Berkeley. Under the Morrill Act, the California legislature establishes a land-grant college (the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College) one mile north of the College of California’s Berkeley site. This school eventually evolved into the College of Natural Resources.

1868 The land-grant college has money but no land; the College of California has land but no money. By an act of the state legislature, the two schools merge to form the University of California. The new school is chartered as a "complete university," to teach humanities as well as agriculture, mining, and mechanics.

1869 The University of California opens in Oakland with 10 faculty members and 40 students.

1870 Henry Durant is named first president of the University. The Regents permit women to enroll in the University.

1873 With the completion of North Hall and South Hall, classes begin on the Berkeley campus for 191 enrolled students.

last updated on 8/17/05