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- 1209
- Groups of scholars congregate at the ancient Roman trading post of Cambridge for the
purpose of study, the earliest record of the University.
- 1284
- Peterhouse, the first college at Cambridge, is founded by the Bishop of Ely.
- 1347
- Mary, Countess of Pembroke, founds Pembroke College.
- 1446
- Henry VI, founder of Eton and of King's College, Cambridge, lays the first stone of
King's College Chapel.
- 1503
- Thomas Cranmer, aged 14, enters the newly-endowed Jesus College.
- 1511
- Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, founds St John's College.
- 1516
- Erasmus, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, works on his translation of
the Greek New Testament and on textbooks which were to become the staple of the 'new
learning'. His work led to him being considered the most important scholar of the Northern
Renaissance.
- 1533
- Thomas Cranmer ends his career in Cambridge to become the first post-reformation
Archbishop of Canterbury. While in the post, he annuls Henry VIII's marriages to Catherine
of Aragon and Anne Boleyn and divorces him from Anne of Cleves. He is also largely
responsible for the Book of Common Prayer, the official directory of worship of the Church
of England.
- 1546
- Henry VIII founds Trinity College, Cambridge.
- 1584
- The Cambridge University Press, the world's oldest-established press, begins its
unbroken record of publishing every year until the present.
- 1600
- Dr William Gilbert of St John's publishes his 'De Magnete', a scientific work
fundamental to the development of navigation and map making.
- 1625
- John Milton enters Christ's, where he studies until 1632. Five years later, on the death
of his friend, Edward King, he writes Lycidas, recalling in pastoral terms their
days together.
- 1627
- John Harvard enters Emmanuel College as an undergraduate. He later emigrates to America
and, in 1639, re-endows the college which now bears his name, at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- 1628
- William Harvey of Gonville and Caius College, publishes his celebrated treatise, `De
motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus', (On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in
Animals), describing his discovery of the mechanism of blood circulation.
- 1675
- Charles II appoints John Flamsteed to the new post of Astronomer Royal. The following
year, Flamsteed, educated at Cambridge, institutes reliable observations at Greenwich,
near London, providing data from which Newton is later able to verify his gravitational
theory.
- 1687
- Isaac Newton publishes `Principia Mathematica', establishing the fundamental principles
of modern physics.
- 1704
- The Plumian chair of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy is endowed by Thomas Plume of
Christ's. Subsequent incumbents include Roger Cotes, Sir George Biddel Airy, who was
responsible for the first public observatory in Cambridge, James Challis, Sir George
Darwin, son of the naturalist Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle and Sir Martin Rees.
- 1711
- Richard Bentley, Regius Professor of Divinity from 1717, completes his edition of the
Latin poet, Horace. His editing and interpretation of classical texts inspires all later
generations of classics scholars.
- 1762
- The University's first Botanic Garden is endowed by Richard Walker of Trinity.
- 1776
- Cambridge graduates, Thomas Nelson, Trinity and later of Virginia; Arthur Middleton, St
John's and later of South Carolina and Thomas Lynch, Gonville and Caius and also of South
Carolina, are among the signatories of America's Declaration of Independence.
- 1784
- The Rt Hon William Pitt of Pembroke is elected MP for the University at the age of 25, a
year after becoming Prime Minister.
- 1791
- Wordsworth goes down from St John's, later to become Poet Laureate. Just a few months
afterwards, his great literary companion and poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, enters Jesus
College.
- 1805
- Lord Byron enters Trinity and starts writing his early satires and poems.
- 1806
- Viscount Palmerston is elected to Parliament three years after entering St John's,
beginning a distinguished lifetime's career in Government, much of it as an MP for the
University. He served two terms as Prime Minister, the first of which saw his vigorous
prosecution of the Crimean war with Russia in 1855.
- 1812
- Charles Babbage, while an under-graduate at Peterhouse, has his first ideas for a
calculating machine and later starts work on his 'difference engine', which he never
completed but which heralds later inventions leading to the modern computer.
- 1829
- Alfred Tennyson, Trinity under-graduate, is awarded the Chancellor's medal for his poem,
'Timbuctoo'. In 1850, he publishes his major poetic achievement, 'In Memoriam', the elegy
mourning the death of his friend, Arthur Hallam, also of Trinity, and succeeds Wordsworth
as Poet Laureate.
1829 also sees the staging of the first Boat Race between Cambridge
and Oxford, won by Oxford.
- 1831
- Charles Darwin of Christ's is recommended by Botany Professor John Stevens Henslow to
join HMS Beagle as the naturalist on its scientific survey of South American waters.
- 1847
- Prince Albert, Consort of Queen Victoria, is elected Chancellor and becomes an
influential voice for reform.
- 1849
- Thomas Babington Macaulay, Fellow of Trinity, publishes volumes one and two of his
immensely popular `History of England'.
- 1851
- The Natural Sciences Tripos is first examined, loosening the stranglehold of mathematics
and classics on the syllabus, and opening the door to modern studies of the arts and
sciences.
- 1869
- Emily Davies and others found Girton College, the first residential university-level
institution of higher learning for women.
- 1870
- William Cavendish, seventh Duke of Devonshire, endows the University's new Cavendish
Laboratory for the study of experimental physics. Total cost: £8,450.
- 1871
- James Clerk Maxwell returns to Cambridge as the first Cavendish Professor of Physics.
Two years afterwards he publishes his 'Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism' and later
outlines his theory of electromagnetic radiation, confirming him as the leading
theoretical physicist of the century.
- 1888
- Frederic William Maitland is appointed Downing Professor of the Laws of England. He
remains the outstanding figure in the understanding of the Mediaeval History and Law of
England. His work secures Cambridge as one of the world's leading centres for the study of
legal history.
- 1897
- J.J. Thomson, Cavendish Professor of Physics, discovers the electron, laying the
foundations for the whole of modern physics, including electronics and computer
technology. In following years, inventors use his work to develop new devices such as the
telephone, radio and television.
- 1899
- Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf and Thoby Stephen meet as under-graduates at Trinity and
form the nucleus of what was to become known as the Bloomsbury Group.
- 1903
- Bertrand Russell, Fellow of Trinity, publishes 'Principles of Mathematics', the same
year as G.E. Moore publishes his influential 'Principia Ethica'. In 1913, Russell and A.N.
Whitehead publish the even more influential `Principia Mathematica'. It is another four
decades before Russell collects his Nobel prize for Literature.
- 1906
- J.J. Thomson collects his Nobel prize for Physics for his work on the electron.
- 1907
- Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India 1947-1964, enters Trinity.
- 1911
- Ludwig Wittgenstein arrives in Cambridge from Vienna to study philosophy with Russell.
The work of the two men, with Moore, transforms philosophy during the first half of the
20th century and makes Cambridge the most important centre for philosophical research in
the English-speaking world.
- 1912
- During a walk on the Backs, the young Lawrence Bragg has an idea that will lead to his
discovery of the mechanism of X-ray diffraction. Three years later, he shares his Nobel
prize for Physics with his father, W.H. Bragg.
- 1918
- Following the Armistice, Eric Milner-White, Dean of King's, institutes the first
Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, now broadcast worldwide from King's College Chapel
each Christmas Eve.
- 1927
- George `Dadie' Rylands becomes a Fellow of King's. His career inspired generations of
actors and directors including Derek Jacobi, Michael Redgrave, Daniel Massey, Peter Hall,
Trevor Nunn and Jonathan Miller.
- 1929
- Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, Professor of Biochemistry, receives his Nobel prize for
Physiology and Medicine for discovering vitamins. It was his work which gave rise to the
study of a new subject, biochemistry, and inspired Sir William Dunn's trustees to endow
the now world famous Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry.
- 1932
- The atom is split for the first time. The work, giving birth to the study of nuclear
physics, is carried out by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, under the direction of Ernest
Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory. Their Nobel prize for Physics is awarded in 1951.
In
this year, F.R. Leavis, Lecturer in English, also publishes 'New Bearings in English
Poetry'. His distinctive style of literary and cultural criticism influences generations
of students in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
- 1933
- Professor Paul Dirac receives his Nobel prize for Physics. One of the founding fathers
of quantum theory, basic to physics, chemistry and mathematics, Dirac also suggested the
existence of antimatter, the positron being the first antiparticle to be discovered.
Positron Emission Tomography is today a vital technique in many areas of medical
diagnosis.
Roger Fry becomes the University's Slade Professor of Fine Art.
- 1934
- Flight Lieutenant Frank Whittle is sent to Cambridge as a mature student by the RAF and
enters Peterhouse. He is encouraged to pursue his innovative idea of jet propulsion,
patented three years earlier but ignored by the Air Ministry.
The University Library
moves to its new site across the River Cam, from where it expands to become the largest
open access library in Europe and one of five national copyright libraries.
- 1936
- John Maynard Keynes, Fellow of King's, publishes the revolutionary 'General Theory of
Employment, Interest and Money', following his equally powerful 'A Treatise on Money' six
years earlier. The Keynsian Revolution, as it became known, changes the view of how
economies should be managed. As Bursar of King's, Lord Keynes also initiated the Cambridge
Arts Theatre.
- 1937
- Dorothy Garrod becomes Disney Professor of Archaeology, the University's first woman
professor. Her notable excavations at Mount Carmel cast new light on the origin of our own
species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and our links to Neanderthal man.
- 1941
- The first aeroplane to be powered by one of Frank Whittle's revolutionary new jet
engines takes to the air.
- 1944
- G.M. Trevelyan, Professor of Modern History, publishes his pioneering work, English
Social History, a companion to his History of England, 1926.
- 1949
- Maurice Wilkes develops the EDSAC, Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, the
first stored program digital computer to work successfully.
- 1953
- Francis Crick and James Watson discover the structure of DNA, unlocking the secret of
how coded information is contained in living cells and passed from one generation to the
next - the secret of life. Their discovery opens the door to the study of an entirely new
science - genetics.
- 1954
- Dr Joseph Needham, Master of Gonville and Caius and already eminent in biochemistry,
publishes the first volume of his 'Science and Civilisation in China', the start of a
massive enterprise, vastly expanding our knowledge of China and its civilisation.
- 1955
- Sylvia Plath, Marshall Scholar at Newnham, continues correspondence to her mother, later
to be published in the book, 'Letters Home.'
- 1958
- Frederick Sanger of the University's Department of Biochemistry, wins the first of his
two Nobel prizes for Chemistry for determining the specific sequence of the amino acid
building blocks which form the protein insulin.
- 1960
- Sir Charles Oatley, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University's Department
of Engineering, leads a team which develops the first scanning electron microscope,
arguably the most important scientific instrument to be developed in the last 50 years.
The instrument is later adapted to write the masks for today's electronic chips.
- 1962
- Max Perutz establishes and directs the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of
Molecular Biology in Cambridge, a notable example of close working relations between the
University and other leading research establishments.
Crick and Watson share the Nobel
Prize for Physiology and Medicine for their discovery of DNA with Maurice Wilkins of the
University of London. At the same ceremony, Max Perutz and John Kendrew share the Nobel
prize for Chemistry for solving the three dimensional structure of proteins - the
catalysts that perform most of the chemical reactions of life.
- 1968
- Anthony Hewish and Jocelyn Bell make the most exciting recent observation in
astrophysics by discovering pulsating stars or 'pulsars' using Cambridge's Mullard Radio
Astronomy Observatory. Their work alters the course of modern cosmology.
The new stars
provide unique physics laboratories for studying matter in extreme conditions, stimulating
research into many new areas of physics. Hewish collects the Nobel Prize for Physics eight
years later, sharing it with Sir Martin Ryle, Astronomer Royal, whose technique of
aperture synthesis had made many of the observations possible.
- 1975
- Trinity College, under the guidance of Dr John Bradfield, Senior Bursar, founds
England's first science park on the outskirts of Cambridge.
- 1980
- Dr Frederick Sanger, Fellow of King's, becomes the first person ever to win two Nobel
prizes for Chemistry, this time for discovering how to determine the information encoded
in DNA - DNA sequencing.
- 1982
- Aaron Klug, of the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology, collects his Nobel prize for
solving complex three dimensional structures including viruses and RNA molecules.
- 1984
- Ted Hughes of Pembroke College succeeds Sir John Betjeman as Poet Laureate.
- 1985
- Cesar Milstein, fellow of Darwin College, collects his Nobel prize for his work on
monoclonal antibodies, the original `magic bullets'. His method of producing unlimited
supplies of highly specific antibodies opens a new route for attacking unwanted cells such
as cancers - revolutionising all aspects of medicine from pure research to drug design.
- 1988
- Professor Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, publishes his book, 'A
Brief History of Time' one of the best selling scientific books of all time. He is already
eminent for his work on black holes and the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.
- 1989
- The Cambridge Foundation is formed, with the aim of raising £250 million over ten
years for research and development in the University.
- 1990
- The Royal Greenwich Observatory relocates to Cambridge, confirming the city among the
world's leading centres for the study of astronomy and astrophysics. Its founder in 1676,
John Flamsteed, also studied at Cambridge.
The Institute of Management Studies is named
the Judge Institute following an £8 million benefaction from the businessman, Paul
Judge. Mr Simon Sainsbury gives £5 million to support the Institute the same year
and Mr Peter Beckwith pledges £1 million the following year.
- 1993
- The Royal Commonwealth Society Library moves to Cambridge.
The Granta Backbone
Network is completed, providing the University with on line computer links across
Cambridge via a network of fibre optic cables running under the streets of the mediaeval
city. The project allows the University to become an early site for connection to
SuperJANET and the Internet.
- 1995
- Professor Sir Martin Rees, Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy,
1973-91, and a Royal Society research professor at Cambridge, follows in the footsteps of
many of his predecessors by taking up his appointment as Astronomer Royal.
The
University mounts 'Foundations for the Future', the first exhibition of its kind in the
UK, marking the achievements of Cambridge University.
- 1996
- H.M. The Queen visits Cambridge to open the new Law Faculty and Judge Institute of
Management Studies buildings.
The Institute of Biotechnology is awarded the Queen's
Award for Technology for its work on protein purification.
Professor James Mirrlees is awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics.
- 1997
- Professor Michael Pepper and his team discover a new standard for electric current.
The
Cavendish Laboratory marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the electron.
Mrs Molly Maxwell becomes Cambridge's oldest graduate at the age of 105.
- 1998
- A special ceremony at the Senate-House marks the 50th Anniversary of women gaining full
membership of the University.
- 2009
- The University of Cambridge celebrates 800 years of achievement on behalf of mankind.
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