PrincetonUniversity

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A Princeton Time Line

1696 - Town of Princeton settled.

1746 - College of New Jersey founded in Elizabeth, New Jersey, by the Presbyterian Synod. Jonathan Dickinson appointed first president.
1747 - College moves to Newark under President Aaron Burr, Sr., its second president.
1748 - Present charter granted in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

1753 - Nathaniel and Rebeckah FitzRandolph and others deed 10acres in Princeton to the College.
1756 - Nassau Hall completed; College of New Jersey moves from Newark to Princeton.
1757 - Jonathan Edwards becomes third president.
1759 - Samuel Davies installed as fourth president.

1761 - Samuel Finley becomes fifth president.
1768 - The Reverend John Witherspoon of Scotland installed as sixth president.
1769 - American Whig Debating Society formed.

1770 - Cliosophic Debating Society formed.
1776 - President Witherspoon signs the Declaration of Independence.
1777 - George Washington drives the British from Nassau Hall.

1783 - Continental Congress meets in Nassau Hall, which served as a capitol of the United States from June until November.

1795 - Samuel S. Smith becomes seventh president.

1812 - Ashbel Green installed as eighth president.

1823 - James Carnahan becomes ninth president.
1826 - James Madison, Class of 1771 and former president of the United States, becomes the first president of the Alumni Association of the College of New Jersey.

1854 - John Maclean, Jr. installed as tenth president.

1868 - James McCosh of Scotland elected eleventh president.

1876 - The Princetonian is published for the first time (still published daily by students during the academic year).

1883 - Triangle Club (originally called Princeton College Dramatic Association) founded.
1888 - Francis L. Patton becomes twelfth president; Princeton University Art Museum founded.

1893 - Honor system established.
1896 - Name officially changed to Princeton University.

1900 - Graduate School established.
1902 - Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, elected thirteenth president.
1905 - President Wilson establishes system of preceptorials by junior faculty.
1906 - Carnegie Lake created by Andrew Carnegie.

1912 - John G. Hibben installed as fourteenth president.
1913 - Graduate College dedicated.
1914 - Palmer Stadium completed.
1919 - School of Architecture established.

1921 - School of Engineering established.
1928 - Princeton University Chapel dedicated.

1930 - School of Public and International Affairs established.
1933 - Harold W. Dodds becomes fifteenth president; Albert Einstein becomes a life member of the Institute for Advanced Study, with an office on the Princeton campus.

1940 - Program of Annual Giving established. Undergraduate radio station (then WPRU, now WPRB) founded.
1948 - Firestone Library dedicated.

1951 - Forrestal Campus established on U.S. Route 1; "Project Matterhorn" research in nuclear fusion begins there. In 1961 its name is changed to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
1957 - Robert F. Goheen installed as sixteenth president.

1962 - $53 million fund-raising campaign, under President Robert F. Goheen, concludes. It exceeded its goal and raised $61 million.
1964 - Ph.D. degree awarded to a woman for the first time.
1969 - Trustees vote to admit women undergraduates.

1970 - Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC), a deliberative body of faculty, students, staff, and alumni, is established.
1971 - Third World Center founded.
1972 - William G. Bowen becomes seventeenth president.

1982 - System of residential colleges established.
1986 - A five-year "Campaign for Princeton" concludes under President William G. Bowen after raising $410.5 million.
1988 - Harold T. Shapiro installed as eighteenth president.

1996 - The University begins its 250th anniversary celebration, beginning on the eve of Alumni Day and ending with Commencement in 1997.
 

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