Select Chronology

1821 Congress charters Columbian College, a nonsectarian school under Baptist sponsorship; 11 students are enrolled; the campus is on College Hill in the country.

1824 First graduation; President John Quincy Adams and the Marquis de Lafayette attend.

1825 The Medical Department begins work at its building on 10th and E Streets, NW.

1827 Classes suspended for lack of money.

1828 Classes resumed for three-month semester. Law Department closed.

1844 The Medical School is given the use of the Washington Infirmary in Judiciary Square, making it the city’s first general hospital and one of the first teaching hospitals in America.

1847 Henry Arnold, a student at Columbian, is expelled and nearly lynched for attempting to free the College steward’s slave.

1852 A new department begins teaching English, mathematics, science, and engineering.

1861 The Washington Infirmary burns down. As the Civil War begins, Columbian’s campus becomes a military hospital and barracks.

1865 John May, Columbian professor of surgery, attends the dying President Abraham Lincoln; May later identifies the body of John Wilkes Booth. The Law Department reopens downtown, produces income, and begins to lead the way for Columbian’s move downtown.

1870s Columbian begins buying property around 15th and H Streets, NW, near the White House.

1871 James Clarke Welling is the first non-Baptist to be president of Columbian; the Baptist connection is dissolved.

1872 The first student protest takes place in the Law School; the casus belli is a diploma fee.

1873 Columbian College becomes Columbian University.

1881 The University considers admitting women. The Medical School admits four in 1884, then abandons the idea. The first undergraduate woman, Mabel Nelson Thurston, is admitted in 1888.

1882 Columbian sells the College Hill property and moves downtown, unifying all parts of the University in buildings on H Street between 13th and 15th Streets, NW.

1883 The new University building at 15th and H opens for classes, including those of the new Corcoran Scientific School.

1887 The University opens a dental school.

1888 Columbian awards its first PhD degrees to two of its own faculty.

1891 Electric lights are installed on the first floor of the University building.

1892 The University treasurer has a phone installed in his office.

1893 The School of Graduate Studies is inaugurated.

1894 Columbian Women, an organization of students, faculty wives, and others, is organized to advance the interests of women at the University.

1898 Congress again permits Baptist control of the University in hopes of greater funding.

1903 The Weekly Columbian, a student newspaper, is launched.

1904 Congress amends the University charter, changing the name to The George Washington University and removing sectarian control of the University forever. The student newspaper changes its name to The Hatchet.

1905 Blue and buff, the colors of George Washington’s uniform, become the school colors.

1906 The first meeting of the Colonials basketball team.

1908 Latin is dropped as a requirement; the GW football team wins the South Atlantic championship; the College of Veterinary Medicine is organized.

1909 The undergraduate Division of Education becomes the Teachers College.

1910 Financial crisis and scandal; GW is forced to sell its major building and scatter its departments.

1912 GW buys 2023 G Street, NW, its first acquisition in Foggy Bottom.

1913 The Law School admits women.

1924 GW builds its first new building, Corcoran Hall, on 21st Street.

1925 Stockton Hall, housing the Law School, is dedicated.

1930 The men’s Glee Club takes first place in the 14th Annual Intercollegiate Glee Club Contest at Carnegie Hall in New York.

1931 The Law School begins publishing its Law Review.

1934 Hattie Strong gives GW $200,000 to build a dormitory for women; it is the first GW residence hall.

1935 The Law School becomes a graduate school and requires a BA for admission.

1939 Lisner Library, GW’s first separate library building, opens.

1941-5 GW offers 387 science, engineering, and management courses to about 13,000 students under a special war-time contract with the government.

1946 President Harry Truman receives an honorary degree while his daughter, Margaret, receives her BA. Ingrid Bergman stars in “Joan of Lorraine” in Lisner Auditorium; the new auditorium was segregated.

1954 The National University’s law school is merged into GW’s.

1961 President John Kennedy receives an honorary degree, noting that it took his wife Jackie two years to earn her GW degree, but only three minutes for him.

1963 Groundbreaking for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

1966 GW’s football team plays its last season.

1970 GW becomes staging area and sanctuary for students protesting killings at Kent State and the invasion of Cambodia.

1973 Medical School moves into Ross Hall, reuniting the entire University for the first time since before World War I; Women’s Studies offered as a graduate program.

1975 The Smith Center opens.

1976 The Student Association is established.

1977 Metro’s Foggy Bottom/George Washington University subway
stop opens.

1981 President Ronald Reagan is successfully treated in the GW Hospital’s emergency room after being shot.

1984 Gelman Library acquires its one-millionth volume.

1987 Benjamin Franklin University, an accounting school, merges into GW.

1988 Stephen Joel Trachtenberg becomes the 15th president of The George Washington University.

1990 Gelman Library abandons the card catalogue for a computerized catalogue, Aladdin.

1991 Virginia Campus in Loudoun County opens; President Ronald Reagan receives an honorary GW degree and endorses the Brady Bill.

1992 The men’s basketball team makes it to the NCAA “Sweet Sixteen”; GW hosts press activities for the inauguration of President Bill Clinton and an inaugural ball.

1994 First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers the commencement address on Washington’s Ellipse.

1996 Nobel Prize winner Leon Max Lederman inaugurates GW’s Laureate Lecture Series; the GW solar car is named world champion at the World Solar Car Rally.

1997 President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and Attorney General Janet Reno participate in a conference on hate crimes hosted by GW; the Hippo, or Potomac River Horse, comes ashore at H and 21st Streets.

1998 Senators Bob Dole and John Glenn and the Dalai Lama all speak at GW.

1999 Mount Vernon College merges into GW; Mayor Anthony Williams of Washington, Helen Thomas of the UPI, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu all speak at GW.

2000 GW houses the National Transportation Safety Board’s new training academy; a GW doctoral dissertation wins best prize for dissertation in American Studies.

2000 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speaks at commencement.

2001 GW’s Media and Public Affairs Building and the Health and Wellness Center open; Gelman Library acquires its two-millionth volume.

2002 CNN’s “Crossfire” calls the Jack Morton Auditorium in GW’s Media and Public Affairs Building its broadcast home; the new GW University Hospital opens.

2003 GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs building opens at 1957 E Street, NW; GW names Vice President for Health Affairs John F. Williams new University Provost.