1784 Legislature granted 40,000 acres and named Board of Trustees for University of Georgia

1785 Legislature adopted UGA charter

1801 Franklin College of Arts and Sciences held first classes

1803 Demosthenian Society was founded

1804 First commencement exercises were held and first honorary degrees awarded

1811 Trustees suspended institution for several months

1816 President Brown and other professors resigned under pressure from trustees, and the university was again dissolved until January 1, 1817

1820 Phi Kappa Society was founded by J. H. Lumpkin

1830 UGA began receiving a fixed annual appropriation as support from the state

1833 Botanical Garden was founded

1834 Alumni Society was organized

1842 Legislature stopped providing annual appropriation; UGA remained "private in support and public in control" until 1875

1854 William Terrell gave university $20,000 to establish a department of agriculture

1859 Trustees accepted plan to expand and reorganize UGA into several schools (medical school, law school, agriculture school, engineering school) and authorized granting of the following degrees: Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, Bachelor of Laws, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Divinity, and Doctor of Laws. This was an effort to change UGA's status from a small classical college to a true university.

Lumpkin Law School was established

1864-66

University was closed during Civil War

1866 First social fraternity (Sigma Alpha Epsilon) was organized

Trustees authorized establishment of School of Civil Engineering

State of Georgia received grant of land under Morrill Act of 1862

1869 AB curriculum was reduced from four to two years; junior and senior years became elective

1870 Master of Arts became an earned degree, based on a prescribed course of study on campus

1872 By executive order, UGA was designated the state's land-grant institution

State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts opened for operation as a department of the university

1874 Medical College of Georgia at Augusta became Medical Department of UGA

1878 Trustees adopted changes in degree programs, abandoning the elective in favor of a fixed curriculum for each program. Instead of one degree (AB) in Arts and Sciences, there would be three (Bachelor of Arts, with emphasis on Latin and Greek; Bachelor of Science, requiring only one classical language; Bachelor of Philosophy, stressing modern languages). Three degrees were possible in the Agricultural College: Bachelor of Agriculture, Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Chemistry.

1881 General Assembly abolished tuition fees for all students

1883 Bachelor of Philosophy degree was discontinued

1885 School of Technology in Atlanta was established as a branch of UGA

1888 Trustees adopted resolution for establishment of Experiment Station

1889 Board of Trustees was reorganized to include one member from each congressional district, two from Athens, and four from the state at large

1891 State Normal School was established at Athens as a branch of UGA; became Georgia State Teachers College in 1927

1892 Intercollegiate athletics were introduced to university; first football game was against Mercer

1901 By act of the General Assembly, UGA began receiving regular maintenance appropriations from the state

1903 School of Pharmacy was established

First summer school sessions were held

1905 Certification by accredited high schools replaced written examination as requirement for admission to UGA

1906 Passage of Conner Act established separate board of trustees for College of Agriculture

School of Forest Resources established

1908 A & M College was divided into College of Science and Engineering and College of Agriculture

College of Education was founded

1909 University became an accredited member of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

1910 Graduate School was established by W. H. Bocock

1912 School of Commerce (later College of Business Administration) was founded

1915 School of Journalism was established

1918 Board of Trustees adopted resolution admitting women to university for the junior and senior years only

1931 University System of Georgia was organized under Board of Regents

1932 State College of Agriculture and State Teachers College merged officially with UGA; all engineering was transferred to Georgia Tech; School of Commerce at Georgia Tech came to the Athens campus

1933 School of Home Economics was founded

1938 University of Georgia Press was established

1940 George Foster Peabody awards established

1942 Athens became site of one of U.S. Navy's five pre-flight schools

UGA lost accreditation with Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools because of political interference

1943 University System regained full accreditation, and a new, constitutional Board of Regents was created

1945 Georgia Museum of Art was founded

1946 College of Veterinary Medicine was re-established by regents

1947 Georgia Review began publication

1949 All agricultural activities (College of Agriculture, Experiment Station, and Extension Service) were combined under one dean

1953 Kellogg Foundation bestowed a grant for establishing Georgia Center for Continuing Education

1954 Institute of Law and Government (now the Institute of Government) was founded

Marine Institute was established

1960 Honors Program began

1961 UGA became racially integrated

Institute of Community and Area Development and Institute of Ecology were established

1964 School of Social Work began operations

Institute of Higher Education was established

1965 Institute of Continuing Legal Education in Georgia was founded

1966 First "Study Abroad" program was conducted

1968 Institute of Natural Resources began operations

1969 Rural Development Center was established

School of Environmental Design was formed

1970 Institute for Behavioral Research was established

1972 Rising Junior Test was adopted as a graduation requirement

1974 Special Studies program was implemented statewide, and standard minimum SAT score was established as a requirement for admission to any system institution

1976 Institute for Natural Products Research was established

1977 Rusk Center for International and Comparative Law was dedicated

UGA Small Business Development

Center was established

School of Accounting was established in College of Business Administration

Geochronology Lab became Center for Applied Isotope Studies

1978 School of Home Economics became College of Home Economics

Institute of Continuing Judicial Education and Gerontology Center were established

Black Alumni Association was founded

UGA Research Foundation was established

1980 UGA accorded sea-grant college status

Center for Global Policy Studies was established

1981 Survey Research Center was founded

1982 School of Music was established within College of Arts and Sciences; School of Journalism was designated a professional school

Research Center in Crime and Delinquency and Center for Insurance Education and Research were established

1983 School of Pharmacy became College of Pharmacy

Associate degree program was established in cooperation with Athens Area Vocational-Technical School

Institute for Business and Learning Disabilities Adult Clinic were established

1984 National Center for Leadership Development in Adult and Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning was established

1984-85

University celebrated bicentennial of its founding

1985 Complex Carbohydrate Research Center was established

1986 Center for Simulational Physics, Center for Environmental Biotechnology, Center for Marketing Studies, Center for Research in Nitrogen Fixation and Metalloenzyme Catalysis, and Center for Latin American Studies were established

1987 Center for East-West Trade Policy and Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry were established

1988 Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science was established

School of Journalism and Mass Communication became College of Journalism and Mass Communication

1989 Dowden Center for Telecommunication

Studies and Himan Brown Audio Production Center were established

1990 College of Home Economics became the College of Family and Consumer Sciences;

Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research became James M. Cox, Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research; James M. Cox, Jr. Institute for Newspaper Management Studies was established; Institute for African American Studies was approved

1991 College of Agriculture became the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; School of Forest Resources became the Daniel B. Warnell School of Forest Resources; College of Business Administration became the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry College of Business

1992 The Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Design and the Center for Soybean Improvement were established

1993 The Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement, the National Reading Research Center, the National UV-B Monitoring Center, and the Southeastern Center for Applied Cognitive Aging Research were established

1994 School of Ecology was established within the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; environmental literacy requirement instituted for all undergraduates

Artificial Intelligence Center and Coca-Cola Center for International Business were established

Over $200 million in construction planned or in progress

UGA chosen as site of Olympic soccer and volleyball for 1996 Summer Games

1995 The Bernard B. and Eugenia A. Ramsey Student Physical Activities Center and the School of Music Building and Performing Arts Center opened

The Center for East-West Trade Policy was renamed the Center for International Trade and Security

The Center for Global Policy Studies was renamed the Center for the Study of Global Issues

1996 UGA host to three competitions in the Centennial Olympic Games

New Georgia Museum of Art officially opened

1997 The late Bernard B. Ramsey left the University its largest single gift to date, $18.8 million

The Center for Social Services Research and Development, the Forest Business Center, and the National Environmentally Sound Production Agriculture Laboratory (NESPAL) were established

1998 University converted from quarter to semester system fall term

Professor Edward J. Larson won Pulitzer Prize for History

University and Delta Airlines created the Delta Prize for Global Understanding

The Humanities Center was renamed The Center for Humanities and Arts

The Center for Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology was renamed The Plant Center

Institute for Community and Area Development and The Fanning Leadership Center combined into a single administrative unit, the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership and Community Development

1999 University campus dedicated as an Arboretum

UGA at Oxford opened making it the first University owned residential facility abroad

Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases established

2000 The Institute for European Studies, the Institute for Leadership Advancement in Business Organizations, the Institute for Nonprofit Organizations, the New Media Institute, and the River Basin Science and Policy Center were established

The UGA Libraries established the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame to recognize authors for their contributions to the state's literary heritage 

2001 The 40^th anniversary of the desegregation of UGA was celebrated including renaming of the Academic Building in honor of Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, the first two African American students admitted to UGA