and held its first classes.[16] Beginning in 1891, Phoebe Apperson Hearst made several large gifts to Berkeley, funding a number of programs and new buildings, and sponsoring, in 1898, an international competition in Antwerp, Belgium, where French architect Émile Bernard submitted the winning design for a campus master plan. In 1905, the University Farm was

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10 External links
History[edit]



View from Memorial Glade of Sather Tower (The Campanile), the center of UC Berkeley. The ring of its bells and clock can be heard from all over campus.
Main article: History of the University of California, Berkeley
In 1866, the land comprising the current Berkeley campus was purchased by the private College of California. Because it lacked sufficient funds to operate, it eventually merged with the state-run Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College to form the University of California, the first full-curriculum public university in the state.
Ten faculty members and almost 40 students made up the new University of California when it opened in Oakland in 1869.[14] Andrew Gabrielson was a trustee of the College of California and suggested that the college be named in honor of the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley.[15] In 1870, Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, became the first president. With the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 222 female students and held its first classes.[16]
Beginning in 1891, Phoebe Apperson Hearst made several large gifts to Berkeley, funding a number of programs and new buildings, and sponsoring, in 1898, an international competition in Antwerp, Belgium, where French architect Émile Bernard submitted the winning design for a campus master plan. In 1905, the University Farm was established near Sacramento, ultimately becoming the University of California, Davis.[17] By the 1920s, the number of campus buildings had grown substantially, and included twenty structures designed by architect John Galen Howard.[18]
Robert Gordon Sproul served as president from 1930 to 1958.[19] By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked UC Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments.[19]


The University of California in 1940
During World War II, following Glenn Seaborg's then-secret discovery of plutonium, Ernest Orlando Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb. UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942.[20][21] Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (formerly the Radiation Lab), Berkeley is now a partner in managing two other labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1952).
Originally, military training was compulsory for male undergraduates, and Berkeley housed an armory for that purpose. In 1917, Berkeley's ROTC program was established, and its School of Military Aeronautics trained future pilots, including Jimmy Doolittle, who graduated with a B.A. in 1922. Both Robert McNamara and Frederick C. Weyand graduated from UC Berkeley's ROTC program, earning B.A. degrees in 1937 and 1938, respectively. In 1926, future fleet admiral Chester W. Nimitz established the first Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps unit at Berkeley. During World War II, the military increased its presence on campus to recruit more officers, and by 1944, more than 1,000 Berkeley students were enrolled in the V-12 Navy College Training Program and naval training school for diesel engineering.[22] The Board of Regents ended compulsory military training at B