Chronological List of Events

1776 Meeting in Halifax, North Carolina, the Fifth Provincial Congress approved the state's first constitution. Article 41 of the document provided: "That a school or schools shall be established by the legislature, for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct at low prices; and, all usefull learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted in one or more universities."
1789 The North Carolina General Assembly chartered a degree-conferring institution and established a Board of Trustees to oversee the school. The University of North Carolina, however, would not open its doors to students until January 15, 1795.
1789 Colonel Benjamin Smith donated warrants for 20,000 acres of land in what would become the state of Tennessee to the recently chartered university. Proceeds from the sale of the land went to support the institution during its early years, and, in recognition of this gift, the University named a campus building after him. Completed in 1851, Smith Hall, which is now known as Playmakers Theatre, was formerly used as a library and once a year for the commencement ball.
1789 The University acquired its first piece of scientific equipment--a compass. The object proved to be a source of contention when a dispute arose over whether the State or a private party owned the item.
1789 William Richardson Davie sponsored and pushed through the General Assembly the University Endowment Act (better known as the "Escheats Act"). The law vested in the Board of Trustees "all monies due and owing the public of North Carolina either for arrearages under the former or present government" up to January 1, 1783. Along with gifts and tuition payments, the escheats monies would prove to be one of the University's few sources of income for close to one hundred years.
1792 Commissioners appointed by the recently established Board of Trustees met in Pittsboro to decide on a location for the new university. In the following days, the committee visited several sites near Pittsboro, Haw River, and Raleigh.
1792 The Board of Trustees' site-selection committee visited New Hope Chapel Hill in Orange County. After their visit, they recommended the site as the location for the new university.
1792 Site-selection commissioners unanimously chose New Hope Chapel Hill in Orange County for the new university. They recommended the location to the Board of Trustees at a meeting in New Bern.
1792 The University acquired its first book, "The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God Thomas Wilson, Fifty-eight Years Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man: With His Life," which was presented to the Board of Trustees by John Sitgreaves.
1792 A notice in the "North Carolina Journal," a newspaper printed in Halifax, North Carolina, listed these proposed courses for the new university: "The study of languages, particularly the English; History, ancient and modern; the Belle Lettres, Logic and Moral Philosophy; the Knowledge of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, Agriculture and Botany, with the principles of Architecture...Gentleman conversant in these branches of Science and Literature, and who can be well recommended, will receive very handsome encouragement by the Board. The exercises of the institution will commence as early as possible after the completion of the buildings of the university which are to be contracted for immediately."
1792 The University's Board of Trustees met in Hillsborough to nominate potential sites for the new university.
1792 The Board of Trustees selected an area near Cipritz Bridge on New Hope Creek in Chatham County as the location of the new university. On August 2, 1792, the Board decided that they would "not determine on any given place; but the ballots shall be taken for a given point, with a latitude of erecting the buildings within fifteen miles of said point." On August 4, 1792, they selected one representative from each of the state's judicial districts to serve as a site-selection committee. The members were to meet in Pittsboro on November 1, 1792 and be prepared to visit all of the nominated locations.
1793 In a Masonic ceremony led by William R. Davie, the cornerstone of East Building (now called "Old East") was laid. Old East is the oldest public university building in the nation. Around one hundred years later, October 12 was officially declared to be University Day, and the campus continues to celebrate this day with official ceremonies.
1793 Willie Jones and William R. Davie, both of whom were early university supporters, published a "plea for donation" to the new university in the "North Carolina Journal," a newspaper published in Halifax, North Carolina.
1793 The Board of Trustees signed an agreement with James Patterson, contracting for the construction of the University's first building, which is now known as "Old East." The cornerstone for this structure was laid during a Masonic ceremony on October 12, 1793.
1793 A committee selected by the Board of Trustees met at New Hope Chapel Hill and laid out sites for the university buildings, offices, avenues, ornamental grounds and the adjacent village.
1794 The University's Board of Trustees elected Reverend Dr. David Ker as the "Presiding Professor." The Board decided that "funds were not sufficient to induce a man of much experience and reputation for learning and executive ability to become its President, [so] they therefore determined to begin with a Presiding Professor." Educated at Trinity College in Dublin, Ker previously served as the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville and principal of its Classical School.
1795 The Debating Society was formed. One month later the student organization split, with the second group calling itself the "Concord Society." These two bodies were the precursors of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies (sometimes called "Di-Phi"), which are the oldest student organizations at the University.
1795 The first academic term of the University concluded on this day.
1795 Chartered in 1789, the University officially opened for operation. The University became the first state university in the nation to enroll students, and it was the only public university to graduate students in the eighteenth century. See This Month in North Carolina History, January 1795: The University of North Carolina.
1795 The month-old Debating Society divided, forming two distinct orgnizations, the Debating Society and the Concord Society. The names, however, did not sound distinguished enough, so approximately one year later they were renamed as the Dialectic Society and the Philanthropic Society, their classical equivalents.
1795 The Board of Trustees adopted bylaws, which were written by Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, a Presbyterian minister and educator from Rowan County, for the new University.
1795 Hinton James arrived on the newly opened campus of the University. According to legend, James walked from his home in New Hanover County (now Pender County), becoming the first student to enroll at the first public university in the country. The southernmost dormitory on campus was named in his honor.
1798 The cornerstone was laid for Main Building (now known as South Building). The structure, however, was not completed until 1814.
1798 The University held its first commencement exercises during which degrees were conferred. Seven men, including the first student, Hinton James, received degrees. The University was the only public institution of higher education in the United States to graduate students in the eighteenth century.
1812 The Board of Trustees named Robert Hett Chapman as president. Outgoing president Joseph Caldwell suggested Chapman, a Presbyterian schoolmaster, as his replacement.
1814 The state legislature elected William Miller as governor of North Carolina, making him the first graduate of the University to become governor.
1816 Robert Hett Chapman, who was selected as president by the Board of Trustees on December 12, 1812, resigned as president of the University and returned to the Presbyterian ministry. While in Chapel Hill, he instituted Bible study for students and helped to establish a local church.
1816 Joseph Caldwell was elected president (again) of the University after Robert Hett Chapman's resignation. Caldwell previously served as presiding professor and president from 1796 to 1797 and 1799 to 1812.
1818 Elisha Mitchell arrived in Chapel Hill to serve as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the University.
1819 The first research publication from a chemistry professor at the University was published in the "Raleigh Star," a local newspaper. The work, by Denison Olmsted, involved temperature readings on extremely hot days in the northern latitudes.
1822 The cornerstone of Old West was laid. Completed and occupied in July 1823, the building lies parallel to Old East--the oldest public university building in the nation.
1823 The General Assembly authorized the "Board of Agriculture of North Carolina to employ some person of competent skill and science to commence and carry on a geological survey of the various regions of this State." The survey, started by Denison Olmsted and completed by Elisha Mitchell--both of whom were professors at the University--was the first publicly funded geological survey of a state. The survey map is held by the North Carolina State Archives (Call Number: MC.188.1824o).
1825 University students provided a reception for the Marquis de Lafayette in Raleigh. The reception was accompanied by a public dinner and ball.
1835 The Board of Trustees chose former state representative and governor David Lowry Swain as president.
1842 At a Board of Trustees meeting in Raleigh, James Iredell presented the following proposal concerning the instruction of law at the University: "Be it ordained...that the Executive Committee be & they are hereby authorized at their discretion to establish a Law Professorship and to proscribe such rules and regulations as to the duties and emoluments of such professorship, and also as to the class of Students who may attend instruction therein as (sic) may think proper."
1843 The University's General Alumni Association (GAA) was formed.
1845 President David Lowry Swain recommended that "a program embracing a Law Professorship with the Hon. William Horn Battle at its head" be established. The Board of Trustees agreed and approved Battle as the first professor of law. The Board also bestowed an honorary master of arts degree on Battle.
1847 President James Knox Polk, an 1818 honors graduate of the University, returned to deliver the commencement address. A native of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Polk served as president of the United States from 1845 to 1849.
1850 Two faculty members were attacked on campus when they tried to subdue a group of eight to ten drunk, boisterous students. Hiding in a dormitory, the professors were safe until one of the taller students started to climb in through the window. The professors fought back, assaulting the intruder with a chair. A student named J. J. Slade was finally able to calm the rowdy crowd, and the two professors left campus safely. The student who attempted to climb into the window was expelled from school.
1851 The University's first fraternity, the Beta chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, was organized.
1855 Faculty members discovered prospective commencement ball managers, marshals, and their friends holding "revels" in South Building. The following morning the faculty suspended four students for three weeks on charges of being drunk.
1856 Benjamin S. Hedrick, professor of chemistry applied to agriculture and the arts, was attacked in a Raleigh newspaper for his support of Republican presidential candidate John C. Fremont. Following the incident and the subsequent controversy, the University dismissed Hedrick, making him the only faculty member to have been fired because of his political beliefs.
1857 Elisha Mitchell fell to his death from a forty-foot waterfall on what would come to be called Mt. Mitchell. The sixty-four-year-old professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology climbed the mountain to prove his (correct) assertion that it was the highest point east of the Mississippi River.
1858 Professor Elisha Mitchell's body was reburied on the peak of what is now known as "Mt. Mitchell," the highest point east of the Mississippi River. President David Lowry Swain spoke at the ceremony, and the title of his address was "A vindication of the propriety of giving the name 'Mt. Mitchell' to the highest peak of 'Black Mountain.'"
1859 President James Buchanan delivered the commencement address at the University.
1860 College servant David Barham died at age 60. A slave of William Barham, he was leased by the University to serve as a servant to students and faculty from 1826 until his death in 1860. He is one of four men listed on the monument to college servants in the African American section of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
1861 Due to the overwhelming enlistment of students in the Confederate army, faculty members became alarmed over the possibility of not having commencement exercises. The professors "hastened to issue a circular stating that since 1795 there had been no suspension [of commencement] and would not be in the future."
1863 The Board of Trustees resolved that President David Lowry Swain should contact Confederate President Jefferson Davis concerning the "suspension of any order or regulation which may have been issued for the conscription of students at the University, untill [sic] the end of the present session, and also with a view to a general exemption of young men advanced in liberal studies, until they shall complete their college course."
1864 The Board of Trustees forwarded a second petition concerning conscription and exemptions among University students to James A. Seddon, Secretary of War for the Confederate States of America. The document sought to exempt University freshmen and sophomores from the draft.
1865 According to author William Snider's "Light on the Hill: A History of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill," the first Federal soldiers, or "bluejackets" as Snider calls them, reached Chapel Hill and the University.
1865 According to historian Stephen B. Weeks, Federal soldiers entered and took possession of the village of Chapel Hill on this date.
1865 President David Lowry Swain's daughter, Eleanor, married U.S. Army General Smith B. Atkins in Chapel Hill. The marriage of Eleanor Swain to an officer from the occupying Union army caused a minor scandal in the town.
1868 Governor William W. Holden and the Reconstruction-era Board of Trustees removed David Lowry Swain from his position as president.
1869 After the death of former president David Lowry Swain, the University reopened under Reverend Solomon Pool. One student showed up for the new year but left after no others came. After a few days, however, other students did arrive on campus.
1871 "This old University has busted and gone to hell today." This statement was found scribbled in chalk on a recitation room wall in South Building with the date: February 1, 1871. Reeling from the difficulties of Reconstruction and a virtual boycott by state citizens against the Republican-installed university administration, the University was forced to close in 1871. It would not open its doors for students again until 1875.
1874 A committee consisting of Walter L. Steele, Paul C. Cameron, and William L. Saunders visited the University, which had been closed since 1871, to study the condition of the vacant buildings. Reporting on April 9, Steele commented that he would never "forget the sadness that overpowered [him] when [his] eyes fell for the first time upon the ruined spot" of campus.
1875 The University held a formal reopening celebration, though the actual opening day was Monday, September 6, 1875. University historian Kemp Plummer Battle proclaimed "FRANCIS DONNELL WINSTON [as] the Hinton James of 1875" (the first student to arrive at the reopening of the University).
1875 Learning of the North Carolina General Assembly's passage of a bill to reopen the University, Cornelia Phillips Spencer gathered a group of villagers and went to South Building to ring the bell in celebration.
1876 Kemp Plummer Battle was elected president of the newly reopened University. Valedictorian of the Class of 1849, Battle previously served as secretary of the Board of Trustees.
1877 The University held its first University Day celebration, honoring the laying of Old East's cornerstone in 1793.
1877 Zebulon Baird Vance, who served as governor of North Carolina from 1862 to 1865 and 1877 to 1879 and as a United States senator from 1879 to his death in 1894, delivered the University's commencement address at Gerrard Hall. The title of his speech was the "Life and Character of Hon. David L. Swain, Late President of the University of North Carolina."
1879 The Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees voted to establish a medical school at UNC.
1879 The Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees established a medical school, which was recommended by President Kemp Plummer Battle. Dr. Thomas W. Harris was the first dean, serving from 1879 to 1885. After Harris resigned to begin a private practice, the school closed. In 1890, it reopened under different leadership.
1880 As a part of the already established Medical School, the University opened a "School of Medicine and Pharmacy," a precursor of today's School of Pharmacy. After the resignation of the Medical School's director in 1886, this early pharmacy program ceased to exist. In March 1897, the Board of Trustees reestablished a pharmacy school and elected Edward Vernon Howell to lead it.
1881 By action of the North Carolina General Assembly, the State Agricultural Experiment Station was ordered to be moved from Chapel Hill to Raleigh. In 1889, control of the station was transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the newly formed North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, which is now known as North Carolina State University.
1883 The first monthly meeting of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society was held.
1883 William Battle Phillips earned the first doctor of philosophy degree (Ph.D.) given by the University and the first to be awarded by a public university in the South. In addition, Henry Horace Williams received the University's first "earned" master of arts degree (M.A.). Previously, the University gave M.A. degrees to any graduate who had practiced a profession (law, medicine, or the church) for three years and paid the requisite fee.
1883 The Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society was founded. Composed of faculty, staff, and alumni of the University's science and mathematics departments, the society was organized to commemorate the name and contributions of Elisha Mitchell by fostering scientific research and disseminating scientific knowledge.
1886 Frank Porter Graham, who served as University president from 1930 to 1932, was born in Fayetteville. When the General Assembly created the Consolidated University of North Carolina, he was named as its first president, serving in this position until 1949.
1888 The University played its first intercollegiate football game, losing to Wake Forest College 4-6 in a game played at the State Fair in Raleigh.
1889 The football team recorded its first win, defeating Wake Forest College 33-0.
1893 Looking for a way to promote the University's football team, students started a one-page tabloid called the "Tar Heel." In its early years, the paper, which is now called "The Daily Tar Heel," predominantly reported on athletic events and scores.
1893 Chemistry professor Francis P. Venable and University student William R. Kenan, Jr. demonstrated the industrial applications of calcium carbide--the source of acetylene--in Person Hall.
1895 According to legend, the first forward pass in intercollegiate football was completed. The pass was thrown by a Tar Heel player in a game against the University of Georgia in Atlanta. The Bulldogs protested the illegal play, but the referee claimed not to have seen the pass. Football legend John Heisman witnessed the play and later led a successful attempt to have the forward pass legalized in 1906.
1895 Historian Stephen B. Weeks, an 1886 graduate of the University and recipient of the University's first Ph.D. in English, delivered an address at the centennial celebration of the opening of the University. The topic of his talk was "The University of North Carolina in the Civil War."
1896 Edwin Anderson Alderman was named as president of the University, serving from 1896 to 1900.
1897 The University's alma mater, "Hark the Sound," which was originally called "Hail to the Brightest Star," was first performed by the Carolina Glee Club. The words of the song were written by William Starr Myers, Class of 1897.
1897 The University inducted Edwin Anderson Alderman into the office of university president. Originally scheduled for October 12, 1896, the ceremony was delayed due to the heated political campaigns of that year. Alderman served from 1896 to 1900, leaving to become president of Tulane University.
1897 The Board of Trustees passed an ordinance admitting women to postgraduate courses at the University.
1898 The cornerstone of Alumni Hall reads "Alumni Building Erected June 1, 1898," though the building was not completed until 1901.
1900 Thomas Clayton Wolfe, best known for his novel "Look Homeward, Angel," was born in Asheville. Wolfe graduated from the University in 1920.
1900 Francis Preston Venable was elected president of the University.
1900 The University began its first summer school program.
1901 An organizational meeting of the "Journal Club" was held. The club met to discuss chemistry-related topics such as "electrical conductivity of double salts" and "smokeless powder."
1901 Standard Oil Trust executive and Florida developer Henry M. Flagler married Mary Lily Kenan at her ancestral home, Liberty Hall, in Kenansville, North Carolina. Flagler died in 1913, and the bulk of his estate was left to his widow. After her death in 1917, the fortune would become the basis of the Kenan Professorship Fund.
1902 The University's Board of Trustees approved the establishment of the Medical Department in Raleigh. The Board also elected Dr. Hubert A. Royster as dean. The Raleigh branch of the University's medical program closed in 1910.
1902 A strong wind storm knocked down several trees on campus and damaged Davie Poplar.
1903 For the first time in its history, the University conferred the Doctor of Medicine degree (M.D.).
1903 The University Brass Band performed at the baseball game between UNC and Gettysburg College. This was the first band performance at a University athletic event.
1905 The newly constructed Bynum Gymnasium opened for student use. The state-of-the-art gym included popular equipment like medicine balls and punching bags, locker rooms, and a swimming pool.
1907 The cornerstone of the Carnegie Library building was laid. Used as a library until 1925, the building was later renamed Hill Hall.
1909 President of Princeton University (and future United States president) Woodrow Wilson spoke at Gerrard Hall.
1911 In its first men's varsity basketball game, the Tar Heels defeated Virginia Christian 42-21. Managed by track and field coach Nat Cartmell, the team went on to finish the season 7-4.
1912 Chemistry fraternity Chi Eta Mu, which was formerly known as the Order of the Khems, petitioned the national chemistry fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma for membership. The request was successful, and the Rho Chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma was installed in Howell Hall.
1912 Caldwell Hall, the first permanent building constructed for the medical school, was dedicated. The building was named for the University's first president, Joseph Caldwell. In its early years the building contained animal pens, housing a variety of animals used for medical experiments.
1912 Isaac William Rand, a freshman from Smithfield, died in an early morning hazing incident. After falling from a barrel and cutting his jugular vein on a broken bottle, he quickly bled to death. Four sophomores were dismissed from the University for the episode, and they were later arrested by Orange County officials. After the trial, one was acquitted of any wrongdoing and three were found guilty of manslaughter. For more information on this incident, see Materials pertaining to the hazing death of Isaac William Rand, 1912, (Call number: FVC378 US11) at the North Carolina Collection.
1913 The details of Standard Oil Trust executive and Florida developer Henry M. Flagler's will were made public. Using portions of Flagler's estate, his widow, Mary Kenan Flagler (later Bingham), would eventually leave a substantial endowment to the University, the Kenan Professorship Fund.
1913 The Confederate Monument commonly known as "Silent Sam" was dedicated in a ceremony on McCorkle Place. Governor Locke Craig, University president Francis Venable, and alumnus Julian S. Carr spoke at the event.
1913 Exhausted by the demands of the presidency, Francis Preston Venable requested a leave of absence, and the Board of Trustees approved his request on this date. Venable would later resign after thirteen years as president.
1915 In a ceremony at Memorial Hall, Edward Kidder Graham was inaugurated as president of the University.
1917 President Edward Kidder Graham proposed a structure to enhance student life--"a student union a student club house building large enough to center and contain religious, social, and general student activities for the whole college."
1917 The will of Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham was probated in West Palm Beach, Florida. Item eight of the will established the Kenan Professorships.
1918 Edward Kidder Graham died of influenza in Chapel Hill. An 1898 graduate of the University, he served as president from 1914 to 1918. The Graham Memorial Building on campus is named for him.
1918 The Board of Trustees appointed Marvin Hendrix Stacy as chairman of the faculty, replacing President Edward Kidder Graham, who died of influenza.
1918 Following the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, World War I ended at 11:00 a.m. During the conflict, the mobilization effort transformed the campus and the University into a military training ground, but with peace declared, the Student Army Corps began to demobilize during the first few weeks of December.
1918 The Board of Trustees adopted President Edward Kidder Graham's recommendations concerning the selection of Kenan Professorships. The first five Kenan Professors named were: Dr. Francis P. Venable, Kenan Professor of Chemistry; Dr. H. V. Wilson, Kenan Professor of Zoology; Dr. Edwin Greenlaw, Kenan Professor of English; Dr. William MacNider, Kenan Professor of Pharmacology; and William Cain; Kenan Professor of Mathematics.
1918 Davie Poplar Jr., which came from a Davie Poplar shoot, was planted on this day. Davie Jr. was a gift of the Class of 1918. Davie Poplar III, a descendant of the original Davie Poplar, was planted on October 12, 1993, in celebration of the UNC bicentennial.
1919 The Carolina Playmakers held their first "caper," which was an event that made fun of a production from the previous year and ended with a party.
1919 At a special meeting of the University's Executive Committee, acting-Chairman of the Faculty (later to be president of the University) Harry W. Chase recommended that Professor Eugene Cunningham Branson be made the sixth Kenan Professor. Professor Branson, who organized the Department of Applied Rural Economics and Sociology, had received an offer from the University of Virginia, but the Kenan Fund enabled the University to keep him on staff.
1919 Thomas Wolfe's play "The Third Night" was performed. As a student, Wolfe wrote and acted in the play along with future Raleigh "News and Observer" editor Jonathan Daniels, Frederick J. Cohn, and others.
1919 Harry Woodburn Chase was elected to serve as president of the University. R. D. W. Connor, secretary of the Board of Trustees, and Josephus Daniels, a member of the Board, were popular choices to assume the office of president following the deaths of Edward Kidder Graham and Marvin Hendrix Stacy. State law, however, prohibited current Board members from being selected as president. Therefore, the trustees voted to elect Chase, who was serving as chairman of the faculty.
1919 The Board of Trustees approved faculty chairman Marvin Hendrix Stacy's recommendations for the formation of a School of Commerce and the employment of a director of music, a university health officer, and an editor of university publications. The Board also agreed with Stacy's proposal for a women's dormitory, which is now known as Spencer Hall.
1919 Chairman of the faculty Marvin Hendrix Stacy died of influenza. At the time of his death, Stacy was serving as the campus's chief administrator due to the death of President Edward Kidder Graham, who also died of influenza.
1919 The Carolina Playmakers performed in the Forest Theatre for the first time, presenting William Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew."
1919 At a meeting of the Executive Committee, President Harry W. Chase proposed the creation of a chair of sociology. After the committee agreed with his recommendation, Chase nominated Howard W. Odum, who at the time was chairman of the College of Liberal Arts and of the Council of Deans at Emory University. Odum accepted the appointment, and the University established the principle of using the Kenan funds to attract distinguished faculty from other institutions.
1919 The Carolina Playmakers presented its first bill of three one-act plays, including Thomas Wolfe's "The Return of Buck Gavin."
1920 At a meeting of the University's Executive Committee, President Harry W. Chase named three faculty members to be Kenan Professors. They were: Professor of History, J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton; Professor of the Romance Languages and Literature, William M. Dey; and Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, Collier Cobb. Professors Cobb and Dey were also the first to be named Kenan Research Professors.
1920 Harry Woodburn Chase, who served as University president from 1919 to 1930, delivered his inaugural address, "The State University and the New South."
1920 Professor Horace Williams received a letter from Mrs. Graham Kenan (after the death of her husband, who was a long-time supporter of Professor Williams). Enclosed with the letter was a check for $26,000--twenty-five thousand to be invested and the income used for establishing the Graham Kenan Fellowship in Philosophy and one thousand dollars to meet the requirements for" 1921. The letter instructed Professor Williams himself to award the annual fellowship.
1920 The Board of Trustees adopted a recommendation to name the following three faculty members as Kenan Professors: William Chambers Coker, Professor of Botany (for productive scholarship); Henry Horace Williams, Professor of Philosophy (for outstanding merit as a teacher); and Louis Round Wilson, Professor of Library Administration and Director of the Bureau of Extension (for distinguished service to the University).
1920 The University established the University of North Carolina Press. With Dr. Louis Round Wilson as director, the Press officially began operations in 1922 and published its first book, "The Saprolegniaceae, with Notes on Other Water Molds" by Dr. William Chambers Coker, in 1923.
1920 William Clyde Friday was born in Raphine, Virginia. Raised in Dallas, North Carolina, Friday served as president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina and its successor University of North Carolina (multi-campus system) from 1957 to 1986.
1920 Professor Howard W. Odum arrived in Chapel Hill. While at the University, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Department of Sociology, School of Public Welfare, Department of City and Regional Planning, and Institute for Research in Social Science.
1920 Professor Howard W. Odum officially joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina.
1922 The University was admitted into the Association of American Universities, making it one of the first southern institutions to be inducted. Founded in 1900 by a group of fourteen universities offering the Ph.D. degree, the Association currently consists of sixty American and two Canadian universities.
1922 The Board of Trustees received a report recommending the establishment of a four-year medical school, with an adequately supported teaching hospital. At the meeting, Colonel J. Bryan Grimes "moved that the board request the legislature to build the proposed hospital at Chapel Hill in connection with the medical school expansion as a memorial to the young men of North Carolina who lost their lives in the World War [I]."
1923 A. T. Morris of New London (Stanly County), North Carolina, left a letter in a wall of Old West while working on renovations. The letter states his wages for the job, his age, and offers a reward to whomever finds the document. On February 11, 1992, construction workers, who were remodeling Old West, found the document.
1924 Rameses the Ram led the football team onto the field for the first time, helping the Tar Heels defeat the Virginia Military Institute 3-0.
1924 Excavation began for Graham Memorial, which was planned to be a three-stage building consisting of a central section and two wings. Due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression, the central portion was the only segment to ever be completed.
1924 The men's basketball team won the Southern Conference tournament championship. With a record of 26-0, the Tar Heels earned the Helms Foundation's National Championship, the team's first.
1925 Poet Robert Frost spoke in Gerrard Hall. He lectured and read from several poems including "Mending Wall," "Birches," and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."
1925 Using funds donated by Robert K. Smith and the Carnegie Foundation of New York, the University renovated Smith Hall for use by the Carolina Playmakers. The building was rededicated as "Playmakers Theatre."
1925 The Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees named the last Kenan Professor to be selected in the 1920s. Archibald Henderson was appointed as Kenan Professor of Mathematics, replacing Kenan Professor of English Edwin Greenlaw, who had resigned to accept a position at Johns Hopkins University.
1926 Well-known critic and columnist H.L. Mencken visited Chapel Hill as the guest of President Harry W. Chase and Prof. Archibald Henderson. Mencken did not speak to an audience, but did attend the UNC-Duke football game, where he occupied a "seat of honor" on the Carolina bench and was cheered by the crowd. Upon leaving the campus, Mencken said, "I am more than ever convinced that the University of North Carolina is one of the greatest intellectual centers of the country."
1926 William Rand Kenan Jr. announced a gift of $275,000 for the construction of Kenan Memorial Stadium. The initial pledge was not enough, however, and further funding was needed. Kenan gave the stadium in honor of his parents, William Rand and Mary Hargrave Kenan.
1926 Professor Frederick Koch and the Carolina Playmakers visited President Calvin Coolidge in the White House.
1927 Edison "Satchel" Foard scored the first touchdown in the newly constructed Kenan Memorial Stadium, helping the Tar Heels defeat Davidson College 27-0 in the first game played in Kenan.
1927 At Kenan Memorial Stadium's dedication ceremony, John Sprunt Hill presented the facility on behalf of William Rand Kenan Jr. to Governor Angus W. McLean, who accepted on behalf of the University and State of North Carolina. Afterwards, the football team defeated the University of Virginia 14-13.
1927 In a resolution passed during a reunion at the University, the Class of 1888 suggested that the Building Committee name the new women's building for Cornelia Phillips Spencer, an advocate for reopening the University during the early 1870s. Spencer was also the first woman to receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from a southern institution.
1928 Calvin Coolidge attended the football game between the Tar Heels and the University of Virginia, making him the first sitting president to attend a college football game in the South. UNC defeated the Cavaliers 24-20 in Charlottesville.
1928 A fire broke out in the chemical storage room in Venable Hall, damaging the building and equipment.
1929 The University's new library building, now known as Wilson Library, was dedicated. After its completion, the library's administration and books were moved from the Carnegie Library building, which is now known as Hill Hall, to the new structure. Wilson, which now houses the library's special collections, served as the main library until the opening of Davis Library in 1984.
1929 A debate between students from the University and the University of Virginia was broadcast live by WRVA, a radio station in Richmond, Virginia. This was the first debate, carried over radio waves, in which the University participated. J. C. Williams and W. W. Speight, both of the Class of 1930, represented the University of North Carolina.
1930 The Carnegie Library building was rededicated and renamed Hill Hall. Originally constructed as the University's library and named for noted philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (who donated $50,000, conditional upon the provision that a similar amount for the library's upkeep and future expansion be available), the building was renamed in honor of John Sprunt Hill, who provided much of the funding for the renovation. The Department of Music moved into the rededicated building and still inhabits it today.
1930 Frank Porter Graham, a 1909 graduate of the University, was elected as president. He served in this position until 1932 when he was chosen as president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, which included the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering in Raleigh, and the Woman's College in Greensboro.
1931 The new Memorial Hall was dedicated. Governor O. Max Gardner and Board of Trustees member John Sprunt Hill spoke at the event.
1931 Student barbers shaved, revived, and dressed a slowly sobering William Faulkner, sending him on his way to speak and read from his works to Phillips Russell's English class meeting near Davie Poplar.
1931 During a ceremony at Kenan Memorial Stadium, the University celebrated the inauguration of Frank Porter Graham as president. Graham served in this office until 1932, when he was named president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina. In 1949, he was appointed by Governor Kerr Scott to fill an unexpired term in the United States Senate.
1931 Invited by playwright Paul Green and sociologist Guy B. Johnson, African-American poet Langston Hughes spoke and read from some of his works at Gerrard Hall. Police were present to discourage efforts to disrupt the event. For more information, see Hughes's description of of his visit, "Color at Chapel Hill" in "The Langston Hughes Reader" (1958).
1931 The Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower was dedicated and rung for the first time.
1931 The North Carolina General Assembly passed a bill to form the Consolidated University of North Carolina, which consisted of the University of North Carolina (at Chapel Hill), North Carolina State College in Raleigh, and Women's College (at Greensboro). Chapel Hill's Frank Porter Graham became the president of the three-campus system, and Robert Burton House was named as dean of administration at Chapel Hill.
1932 At a meeting called by longtime university librarian Louis Round Wilson, the Friends of the Library of the University of North Carolina was founded.
1932 Graham Memorial, the first student union, opened and was dedicated. Every student paid $1 per quarter for the privilege of membership.
1932 Frederick H. Koch, founder and promoter of the Carolina Playmakers, was named as Kenan Professor of Dramatic Literature.
1934 Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed University graduate Robert D. W. Connor as the first Archivist of the United States. Connor organized and oversaw the National Archives from 1934 to 1941. Upon his resignation, Connor returned to the University as the Craige Professor of Jurisprudence and History.
1935 Clemmie Dixon ("C. D.") Spangler, Jr., was born in Charlotte, NC. He served as president of the University of North Carolina (multi-campus system) from 1986 to 1997.
1935 John Sprunt Hill donated the recently completed Carolina Inn to the University, stipulating that any funds over and above the cost of upkeep of the Inn would go to support the University Library's North Carolina Collection.
1936 The North Carolina Hillel Foundation opened with a ceremony at the Carolina Inn.
1937 The ninety-third semi-annual meeting of the American Chemical Society convened at the University. Two thousand one hundred fifty-five participants attended the organization's first meeting at a Southern college.
1937 Hiram Wesley Evans, leader of the Ku Klux Klan, spoke to around 600 people in Memorial Hall on the topic "America for Americans."
1937 UNC played its first intercollegiate soccer game, a scrimmage against Duke. The newly-formed UNC team lost to an undefeated Duke, 2-1.
1937 The Lost Colony, a "symphonic-drama" by University professor Paul Green, opened on Roanoke Island with back-to-back performances.
1938 Focusing on "equal and exact justice for all," Frank Porter Graham gave the keynote address at the first Southern Conference for Human Welfare, which was held in Birmingham, Alabama. With conservatives and other opponents claiming that the organization advocated integration and communism, Graham's involvement with the interracial coalition of southern progressives was heavily criticized.
1938 After delivering an address at Woollen Gymnasium, President Franklin D. Roosevelt received an honorary LL.D. (doctor of laws) from the University.
1938 Gerald Ford, who would later become the 38th president of the United States, attended the first day of class at the University's first summer school session. Ford was attending Yale University's law school, but he had started a semester later than the rest of his classmates. He followed visiting professor Harry Shulman to Chapel Hill for summer law school classes, hoping to catch up with his fellow students in New Haven.
1938 The Bowman Gray Memorial Pool opened to students. The pool was named for alumnus Bowman Gray, Sr., a former president of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
1939 The University dedicated a new medical school building, now known as MacNider Hall.
1939 An interracial group of more than 100, including University students and faculty, students from area schools, and local residents, met in Graham Memorial to discuss higher education for African Americans in North Carolina. The assembly passed and forwarded to the state legislature a resolution in favor of admitting African American students to graduate programs at UNC.
1940 Students held a large rally in Memorial Hall to protest U.S. involvement in World War II. The anti-war speeches and skits were interrupted when other students, who were in favor of military intervention, threw eggs and fruit onto the stage. The event attracted statewide attention and UNC students were criticized both for their pacifist views in light of growing atrocities in Europe and for their unwillingness to allow free speech on campus.
1940 The Marching Tar Heels, followed by several hundred UNC alums and fans, paraded down Park Avenue in New York City prior to the UNC-Fordham game at the Polo Grounds.
1940 WUNC made its first AM broadcast as a student-operated station.
1940 William Hayes Ackland died in Washington, DC. His will directed that an art museum be constructed at a southern university for the benefit of the people of the South. Duke University was named as the original recipient, but it refused the bequest because Ackland wanted to be interred in the museum and the stipulation that the funds be managed by trustees in Washington, D.C. After nine years of litigation over the will, the Ackland Trust and resultant Ackland Art Museum were awarded to the University--one of the other schools previously considered by Mr. Ackland.
1941 The Wilson Zoology Laboratory in Wilson Hall was dedicated.
1941 The North Carolina General Assembly held its sessions on the University's campus in honor of South American visitors who came to campus for a six-week "Summer School."
1942 The Navy Pre-Flight School at UNC was formally commissioned. Over the next three and a half years nearly 20,000 Naval cadets would complete training programs in Chapel Hill. The Pre-Flight School transformed the campus, leading to the construction of several new buildings and the renovation of many others.
1943 Ted Williams and the University of North Carolina Pre-Flight School Cloudbusters played a war-benefit baseball game at New York City's Yankee Stadium. The Navy's Pre-Flight School team faced a combined squad of New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians that featured Babe Ruth.
1945 Kessing Pool, which is located just south of Woollen Gym, was dedicated. Built in 1943, the pool was named for Commander Oliver Owen Kessing, the first commanding officer of the Navy's Pre-Flight School at the University.
1946 The men's basketball team won its first NCAA tournament game, defeating New York University 57-49 at Madison Square Garden.
1947 Massachusetts Congressman John F. Kennedy spoke in Hill Hall at the invitation of the Carolina Political Union. The subject of his talk was "American Foreign Policy -- 1947."
1947 African American soprano Dorothy Maynor performs at Memorial Hall. For probably the first time in UNC history, audience members are not segregated by race.
1948 Thousands of people turned out to watch 28 cars and floats make their way down Franklin Street in the first Beat Dook Parade, sponsored by Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. The parade was an annual tradition on the weekend of the UNC-Duke football game through the early 1990s.
1949 At the first annual summer school Watermelon Festival, held in front of the Davie Poplar, 1,200 people attended and more than 400 watermelons were consumed.
1949 The world's first university-based planetarium, the Morehead Planetarium, opened at the University. The building was named for John Motley Morehead, who was an 1891 graduate and major benefactor of the University.
1949 Consolidated University of North Carolina president Frank Porter Graham was appointed by Governor W. Kerr Scott to the United States Senate seat vacated by the recently deceased J. Melville Broughton.
1949 With President Frank Porter Graham leaving Chapel Hill to serve out the Senate term of the recently deceased J. Melville Broughton, he and his wife, Marian, held their last traditional Sunday open house at their residence.
1950 Historian Herbert Aptheker spoke in Gerrard Hall on "The Roots of Negro Oppression." Aptheker's talk was sponsored by the Karl Marx Study Society. Sixteen years later, Aptheker was banned from speaking on campus under the North Carolina "Speaker Ban" law.
1950 Gordon Gray began his tenure as president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina.
1951 The Board of Trustees voted 61-14 to consider potential medical school students' qualifications "without regard to color or race." At the same time, they reaffirmed their policy that "equal" facilities were available for potential African American law students at the North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University).
1951 The United States Court of Appeals directed the University to admit African American students to its law school. As a result, four African American students enrolled and subsequently attended the University that summer. They were Harvey Beech of Durham, James Lassiter of Rocky Mount, J. Kenneth Lee of Greensboro, and Floyd B. McKissick of Asheville.
1951 African American students attended classes at UNC for the first time in school history when Floyd McKissick, Harvey Beech, J. Kenneth Lee, and James Lassiter began classes in the law school.
1952 WUNC began broadcasting as an FM station.
1952 Mrs. John F. Bolton, from West End, North Carolina, became the first patient admitted to the University's North Carolina Memorial Hospital.
1953 The University dedicated three new buildings to house the growing School of Business Administration: Carroll Hall, Gardner Hall, and Hanes Hall.
1953 Following the dedication ceremony of a Venable Hall addition, University alumnus Andy Griffith presented his original monologue, "What it was, was football."
1953 The North Carolina Memorial Hospital, the School of Dentistry, and the School of Nursing were formally dedicated during a two-day ceremony. Dr. Frank Porter Graham, former president of the University and then a mediator for the United Nations, gave the dedicatory address in Kenan Stadium.
1953 University alumnus Andy Griffith's record, which included "What it was, was football," appeared on this day. It was a huge hit, selling lots of copies and heavily requested on local radio.
1953 The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) was founded in Greensboro, North Carolina. The seven charter members (University of North Carolina, Clemson University, Duke University, University of Maryland, North Carolina State University, University of South Carolina, and Wake Forest College, now University) had withdrawn from the Southern Conference earlier in the day.
1953 The men's basketball team won its first Atlantic Coast Conference game, defeating the University of South Carolina 82-56.
1953 The Federal Communications Commission awarded the University a permit to operate a non-commercial educational television station on channel 4.
1953 Student-run and university-supported radio station WUNC  (91.5 FM) was formally dedicated.
1954 The Old Well, which was decaying, was torn down and work began on a reproduction. The replica was built with sturdier pillars, a marble base, and copper dome. It was completed in mid September
1954 Approximately 400 University students and Chapel Hill residents met in Emerson Stadium for a rally against United States Senator Joseph McCarthy. State representative John Umstead and University professor E. J. Woodhouse spoke at the "Joe Must Go!" event, and McCarthy was hanged in effigy on campus.
1955 Poet Carl Sandburg delivered the University's commencement address.
1955 Public television channel UNC-TV went on the air for the first time, broadcasting as one of its first programs the men's basketball game against Wake Forest.
1955 Louis Armstrong appeared in concert at the University.
1955 LeRoy Benjamin Frasier Jr., Ralph Frasier, and John Lewis Brandon became the first Black undergraduates to attend the University.
1956 The men's basketball team beat Furman University 94-66, the first win in what would be a 32-0 season. The Tar Heels completed their perfect season by defeating Wilt Chamberlain and the University of Kansas in the 1957 NCAA Championship.
1956 The men's basketball team won its first Atlantic Coast Conference tournament game, defeating the University of Virginia 81-77 in Raleigh.
1957 William B. Aycock was installed as chancellor of the University.
1957 The Consolidated University of North Carolina inaugurated William Clyde Friday as president. In 1972, he was selected to head the newly formed University of North Carolina (multi-campus system).
1957 Queen Elizabeth II attended a football game between UNC and the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.
1957 The men's basketball team won its first Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship, defeating the University of South Carolina 95-75 in Raleigh.
1957 Coached by Frank McGuire, the men's basketball team defeated the Wilt Chamberlain-led University of Kansas. In a triple overtime thriller, the Tar Heels beat the Jayhawks 54-53 for the national championship, and UNC finished the season a perfect 32-0.
1958 Chancellor William B. Aycock called for a new student union to replace the overcrowded Graham Memorial.
1958 The University held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new School of Pharmacy building (now known as Beard Hall).
1958 The Ackland Art Museum was dedicated.
1959 The Ackland Art Museum made its first purchase--"Cleopatra and the Peasant" by Eugene Delacroix (1838).
1959 The president of the Republic of Guinea, Sekou Toure, gave a press conference at Graham Memorial.
1959 The School of Pharmacy moved into its new building, which is now known as Beard Hall.
1959 The first unit of a UNIVAC 1105 computer--weighing nineteen tons--arrived at the University. The computer's first task was to assist in tabulating the 1960 Census.
1960 Nobel Prize Laureate Linus Pauling delivered a speech on campus.
1960 The University held a dedication ceremony for the new School of Pharmacy building (now known as Beard Hall).
1960 Classical guitarist Andres Segovia gave a concert on campus.
1960 The Joseph Palmer Knapp Building, home of the School of Government, was dedicated.
1960 Singer Ray Charles appeared on campus for a concert.
1960 Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed an overflow crowd in Hill Hall concerning "The Struggle for Racial Justice." During the speech, he told the primarily white audience that "[i]t is either non-violence or non-existence."
1960 Morehead Planetarium welcomed its one-millionth visitor.
1960 Students from the all-black Lincoln High School staged a sit-in at the Colonial Drugstore on Franklin Street, the first sit-in in Chapel Hill's history.
1960 The UNIVAC computer dedication ceremony took place at Memorial Hall.
1961 President John F. Kennedy spoke at the University Day ceremony in Kenan Memorial Stadium. During the speech, Kennedy stated that "North Carolina has long been identified with enlightened and progressive leaders and people, and I can think of no more important reason for that reputation than this University, which year after year has sent educated men and women who have had a recognition of their public responsibility as well as in private interests."
1961 The men's basketball team defeated the University of Virginia 80-46, giving Dean Smith a win in his head coaching debut.
1961 Guitarist and singer Chuck Berry and vocalist Nina Simone performed at the Winter German in Memorial Hall.
1961 The University's Board of Trustees agreed to name the newly constructed School of Pharmacy building after John Grover Beard, former dean of the school from 1931 to 1946.
1962 Folk singer Pete Seeger performed in Memorial Hall. The proceeds of the concert went to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). A small group of students, critical of Seeger's political views and support of SNCC, protested outside.
1962 More than 500 students participate in a rally and march down Franklin Street in support of the U.S. Blockade of Cuba. During the rally, Cuban leader Fidel Castro was burned in effigy.
1962 The Board of Trustees appointed a study committee to research the feasibility and desirability of expanding the three-campus Consolidated University. Under the chairmanship of Thomas J. Pearsall, the committee proposed several changes, the most controversial of which was the renaming of the original member schools to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of North Carolina at Raleigh. The decision outraged supporters and alumni of State College, and after a successful protest campaign, the name was modified to "North Carolina State of the University of North Carolina at Raleigh." In 1965, the name was changed, again, to "North Carolina State University at Raleigh."
1963 After being denied an opportunity to speak in Durham, Malcolm X visited the University's campus and participated in a public meeting with Durham lawyer Floyd McKissick. A crowd of approximately 1600 attended the event at Memorial Hall.
1963 The organizational meeting of the Committee for Open Business (COB) was held at the St. Joseph A. M. E. Church on Chapel Hill's West Rosemary Street. Organized by University student Pat Cusick, who also chaired the Student Peace Union, the multi-racial group of students, townspeople, and University faculty and staff picketed local businesses that refused to serve African Americans.
1963 Just before the end of its current session, the General Assembly voted on and passed the controversial Speaker Ban Law.
1963 The Daily Tar Heel published its first article by an African American student. "The Negro at Carolina: How Integrated Are We," by Kellis Parker, looks at the experiences of African American students in campus life.
1963 Following its hurried push through last days of the General Assembly session, the Speaker Ban Law was enrolled.
1963 This day's Daily Tar Heel issue contains the headline, "UNC to get Phone Number." As a part of the new Centrex System, the University received a general phone number (campus departments had had them for many years).
1964 The first Francis P. Venable Lecture was delivered by Professor Clyde A. Hutchinson, Jr., of the University of Chicago. The title of Hutchinson's presentation was "Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Studies in Triplet States of Organic Molecules."
1964 Willie Cooper becomes the first Black basketball player at UNC when he takes the court for the junior varsity team. Cooper, from Elm City, N.C., played one year on the JV team.
1964 About 170 people, including many UNC students and faculty members, marched three hours in freezing rain from Durham to Chapel Hill. The "Walk for Freedom" was organized to show support for overturning Chapel Hill's public accommodations ordinance, which allowed restaurants and businesses in town to discriminate against African American customers.
1964 James Dickson Phillips, Jr. became dean of the law school. Phillips, who earned his law degree from the University in 1948, previously served as assistant director of the Institute of Government and lecturer/associate professor of law at the University.
1965 The men's basketball team played its first game in Carmichael Auditorium, defeating William & Mary by a score of 82-68.
1965 After a loss at Wake Forest on January 6, men's basketball coach Dean Smith was burned in effigy during the early morning hours.
1966 Old East, the oldest public university building in the nation, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, it was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 21, 1965.
1966 The North Carolina Botanical Garden opened to the public.
1966 The UNC Glee Club performed for a national audience on the Ed Sullivan Show. They sang "Hey Look Me Over" and "Dixie."
1966 Frank Wilkinson lectured at the off-campus Hillel House during the Speaker Ban Law controversy. Wilkinson, who had taken the Fifth Amendment before the United States House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee, spoke during the day from a Franklin Street sidewalk, which was Town of Chapel Hill property, to students sitting on campus grounds--just on the other side of "Gov. Dan K. Moore's (Chapel Hill) Wall." Wilkinson also attempted to speak at Memorial Hall, but campus officials prohibited him from doing so.
1966 Campus police prevented Herbert Aptheker, historian and American Communist Party member, from speaking on University grounds due to the Speaker Ban Law. Not allowed to lecture on campus, he then proceeded to Chapel Hill's Community Church to deliver a critique of American actions in Vietnam.
1967 The University held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Frank Porter Graham Student Union, Josephus Daniels Student Stores, and Robert B. House Undergraduate Library.
1968 The movie "Three in the Attic," which was filmed primarily in Chapel Hill, was released.
1968 Protesting what they believed was a lack of respect on the part of the University following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., 90% of the University's African American workers walked off the job.
1968 Students from the Black Student Movement present Chancellor Carlyle Sitterson with a list of 23 demands addressing institutional racism at UNC.
1968 In an event sponsored by the University's Black Student Movement, Black Panther prime minister Stokely Carmichael spoke to a crowd of 6,500 people in Carmichael Auditorium.
1968 Following the slaying of three African Americans by police in Orangeburg, South Carolina, the Black Student Movement staged a march and rally at the Franklin Street post office.
1968 The United States Fourth Circuit Court ruled against the Speaker Ban Law, which denied speaking privileges on state-supported campuses to any person who was a Communist Party member, advocated the overthrow of the United States government, or had pleaded the Fifth Amendment in regards to Communist activities.
1968 University students formed a chapter of the Southern Student Organizing Committee, with 150 individuals attending its first meeting.
1968 University students and faculty protested the campus visit of a job recruiter for Dow Chemical Company, the maker of napalm and herbicides used by the United States military in Vietnam. Fifteen protestors were arrested for attempting to block the entrance to Gardner Hall, where the recruiter was located.
1969 Cafeteria workers at UNC went on strike, demanding improved pay and working conditions.
1969 Approximately 7,000 UNC students (60% of the student body) participate in the Vietnam Moratorium, a nationwide boycott of classes by college students seeking to end the Vietnam War.
1969 United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren spoke at the dedication ceremony of the Van Hecke-Wettach School of Law building.
1969 The Frank Porter Graham Student Union opened. State bonds and student fees funded the building.
1969 Janis Joplin performed at Carmichael Auditorium.
1970 The University held a dedication ceremony for Greenlaw Hall.
1970 Singing duo Ike and Tina Turner performed in Carmichael Auditorium.
1970 Actress and antiwar activist Jane Fonda spoke to a crowd of over 4,000 students in Memorial Hall as part of Political Science 95-A.  Though Fonda was supposed to discuss the Sexual Revolution, she instead issued a sharp indictment of U.S. policy in Vietnam and the Nixon Administration’s attempts to muffle antiwar protesters.
1970 Thousands of University students held a candlelight march to protest the invasion of Cambodia by the United States and the shooting deaths of Kent State University students by National Guardsmen. The procession started on campus, stopped in the Pit for a memorial service, descended upon Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson's residence, proceeded to President William C. Friday's house, and eventually ended on Franklin Street.
1971 Following a dance at the Student Union, Chapel Hill resident James Lewis Cates was murdered during a fight in the Pit.
1971 Chuck Berry, Spirit, Muddy Waters, the J. Geils Band, Alex Taylor, the Allman Brothers Band, and Tom Rush performed at "Jubilee," a three-day musical event held on the University's Navy Field.
1971 Playmakers Theatre, formerly called Smith Hall, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
1971 The Faculty Council passes a resolution in favor of prohibiting the carrying of firearms by campus police, except in special circumstances. The resolution also recommends that the campus police adopt a new uniform that is clearly distinguishable and would emphasize their "helpfulness to all elements of the campus community."
1972 William Clyde Friday was elected president of the University of North Carolina (multi-campus system). Prior to the creation of the system, he served as president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina from 1956 to 1972.
1972 Speaking in Kenan Stadium at the 178th annual commencement exercises, Elizabeth Koontz became the first Black commencement speaker in UNC history. Koontz, a native of Salisbury, N.C., was an educator and Deputy Asst. Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Labor.
1972 Under the Higher Education Reorganization Act of 1971, the University of North Carolina (multi-campus system) expanded to include sixteen institutions.
1972 Newspapers reported the retirement of North Carolina Symphony conductor Benjamin Franklin Swalin, who also had served as a professor of music at the University.
1972 The Board of Governors for the newly formed University of North Carolina (multi-campus system) held its first meeting, which was hosted by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
1972 Nelson Ferebee Taylor assumed the duties of chancellor. A 1942 graduate of the University, Taylor served as chancellor from 1972 to 1980. A reading room in Davis Library is named for him.
1972 Richard Epps became the first African American student body president at the University. Although campus elections were held on February 29, Epps was not declared the winner until March 2 due to computer problems and a possible runoff.
1973 The Upendo lounge, which served as the African American student union on campus, opened in Chase Cafeteria.
1973 The William Rand Kenan, Jr. Laboratories of Chemistry were dedicated. As a part of the celebration, the Chemistry Department's faculty offered two days of intensive short courses based on their current research.
1973 United States Senator Sam J. Ervin, a 1917 graduate of the University, spoke before six thousand people at Carmichael Auditorium, criticizing President Richard Nixon's refusal to make available audio tapes during the Watergate Affair investigation.
1974 In one of the most famous comebacks in NCAA basketball history, the men's basketball team rallied from an 8-point deficit with only 17 seconds left to force the game into overtime against Duke University. The Tar Heels then went on to win 96-92.
1974 University students organized the American Streaker Society (ASS). Two days later more than 900 naked students marched single-file through a crowd of 6,000 onlookers, accompanied by the cheerful sounds of the University pep band.
1975 At a gathering in Memorial Hall, Stokely Carmichael spoke about the role of a revolutionary and encouraged students to challenge popular conceptions of history.
1975 The Faculty Council votes to ban smoking in university classrooms. The decision follows a student referendum in which students also voted in favor of prohibiting smoking in class.
1975 Student protesters, led by members of the Black Student Movement, disrupted attempts by Ku Klux Klan national information director David Duke to speak at Memorial Hall.
1976 UNC hosted the first annual Southeastern Gay Conference. Approximately 300 people attended the two-day conference, which was sponsored by the Carolina Gay Association.
1976 Off the air since 1971, when lightning struck its transmitter, WUNC-FM went back on the air.
1977 Beat Generation authors Alan Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Peter Orlovsky read from their works at Memorial Hall.
1977 Student-run FM radio station WXYC went on the air for the first time.
1978 Karen Leslie Stevenson, a 22-year old history major from Washington, D.C., became the first African American female Rhodes Scholar. In addition, she was also the first African American female Morehead Scholar at the University.
1978 The Paul Green Theater hosted its first performance, a revival of "Native Son," the play by Paul Green adapted from the novel by Richard Wright. Wright's widow, Ellen Wright, attended the performance.
1979 The women's soccer program played (and won) its first game, blanking Duke University 12-0.
1979 More than 18,000 students filled Kenan Stadium for the Springfest '79 concert featuring Nantucket, the Spinners, and Jimmy Buffett.
1980 UNC students held a "Smoke-In" in the Pit to protest laws prohibiting marijuana use. Approximately 100 students smoked the free joints handed out by a group the Daily Tar Heel described as "national and N.C. Yippies." There were no arrests.
1981 Beating Central Florida 1-0 in Chapel Hill, the women's soccer team won its first national championship game. The game was sanctioned by the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW).
1982 The men's basketball team defeated Georgetown University for Coach Dean Smith's first NCAA championship. With 15 seconds left in the game, freshman Michael Jordan hit the winning 16-foot jumper to beat the Hoyas 63-62 in the New Orleans Superdome.
1982 The women's soccer team won its first NCAA championship, defeating Central Florida.
1983 University of North Carolina Student Television (STV) went on air for the first time.
1983 In a concert that "oozed steamy sexuality," according to the Daily Tar Heel review, Prince performed at Carmichael Auditorium.
1984 The 423,000 square foot Walter Royal Davis Library opened for use. A former member of the Board of Trustees, Davis was instrumental in securing money for the project from the sale of university-owned utilities.
1985 The Art Department building was dedicated and officially named the Frank Bowden and Barbara Lasater Hanes Art Center.
1985 The Walter Royal Davis Library was formally dedicated.
1985 Fans attending the UNC v. Florida State football game on campus parked in the Old Chapel Hill cemetery. An estimated 25 cars were parked in the cemetery, including some on grave sites in the African American section of the cemetery. More people parked in the cemetery on the day of the UNC-Clemson game a few weeks later. The cemetery parking drew an outcry from community members and local activists and led to a renewed commitment toward maintaining the cemetery.
1985 The Joseph Curtis Sloane Art Library was formally named at a ceremony honoring Dr. Sloane, who served as chair of the Art Department from 1950 to 1974 and director of the Ackland Art Museum from 1958 to 1978.
1985 Patricia Wallace won the student body president election, becoming the first woman to hold this position in the University's history.
1986 Clemmie Dixon ("C. D.") Spangler, Jr., assumed the duties of president of the University of North Carolina (multi-campus system). A 1954 graduate of the University, Spangler was the second president of the sixteen-campus University of North Carolina.
1986 The Anti-Apartheid Support Group protested the University's investment in companies that conducted business in racially segregated South Africa. Constructing mock "shanties" on Polk Place, the group attempted to portray living conditions for black South Africans. Later, the College Republicans and Students for America built a mock Berlin Wall to protest the Anti-Apartheid Support Group's activities.
1986 Clemmie Dixon ("C. D.") Spangler, Jr. was inaugurated as president of the University of North Carolina (multi-campus system). Prior to this, he worked in business and also held several public positions. A 1954 graduate of the University, Spangler served as president until 1997.
1986 The Walter Royal Davis Library's main reading room was named for former chancellor Nelson Ferebee Taylor.
1986 Country music singer Kenny Rogers appeared in concert at the Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center, the first to be held in the new arena.
1986 The men's basketball team won its final game in Carmichael Auditorium, defeating North Carolina State University 90-79. The team moved to the newly completed Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center following this game.
1986 The men's basketball team played its first game in the Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center. The number one-ranked Tar Heels defeated third-ranked Duke 95-92. North Carolina forward Warren Martin scored the first Tar Heel basket in the new arena.
1986 On Dedication Day, the University honored twelve former men's basketball players, hanging replicas of their jerseys from the rafters of the Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center. The front six jerseys honored players whose numbers have been retired from use. They are: Jack Cobb (not numbered), George Glamack #20, Lennie Rosenbluth #10, Phil Ford #12, James Worthy #52, and Michael Jordan #23.
1987 Author Doris Betts delivered an address at the Katherine Kennedy Carmichael Residence Hall dedication ceremony. Carmichael came to the University in 1946 as dean of women with an adjunct appointment as lecturer in the English Department. After holding these positions for 26 years, she became associate dean of student affairs in 1972. She died June 26, 1982, in Birmingham, Alabama.
1988 The James Alexander Taylor Student Health Service building was dedicated.
1989 The Board of Trustees approved the construction of the Student Recreation Center on a site adjacent to Fetzer Gymnasium. Construction began in August 1991 and was completed in 1993.
1990 A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Thurston Building, which is named for Doc J. Thurston, Jr., a 1932 cum laude graduate of the School of Engineering at the University. The building houses the Thurston Arthritis Research Center and several other health-related departments.
1990 A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Bowles Building. Named in honor of Hargrove "Skipper" Bowles Jr., the structure houses the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies.
1990 McGavran-Greenberg Hall, which houses the Public Health and Environmental Sciences Center, and the adjacent Herman G. Baity Environmental Laboratory were dedicated.
1990 The William B. Aycock Family Medicine Building (later Center) was formally dedicated. The structure's namesake served as chancellor from 1957 to 1964.
1991 The William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education was dedicated.
1991 The controversial "Student Body" sculpture was relocated from the front of Davis Library to a courtyard behind Manning Hall.
1992 The Monogram Club was renamed "Blyden and Roberta H. Jackson Hall." Blyden Jackson was the first African American full professor in 1969 and the first African American man to hold tenure. Roberta Jackson joined the School of Education faculty in 1970, becoming the first African-American woman to earn tenure in the Division of Academic Affairs.
1992 Construction workers found a letter in the wall of Old West while renovating the building. Left by a worker in 1923, the letter states his wages for the job, his age, and offers a reward to whomever finds the document.
1992 The Center for the Study of the American South, with its mission "to encourage teaching about, research on, and service to the South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill," was established.
1992 Sports Illustrated named Chapel Hill as the best college town in the nation, writing that "Chapel Hill represents a college town, in the best sense. It's the purest example we could find of a town that is defined by a university--and a good university."
1992 The Cone-Kenfield Indoor Tennis Center was dedicated. Home of the men's and women's varsity tennis teams, the Center was named for Ceasar Cone II and John Kenfield. Cone was a tennis letterman in the 1920s and son of a co-founder of Cone Mills in Greensboro. Kenfield coached the men's tennis team from 1928 to 1955, amassing a 434-30-2 record in dual matches and 17 conference championships.
1992 Film director and producer Spike Lee spoke at the Smith Center concerning the importance of a free-standing, on-campus Black Cultural Center (which was built and is now called the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History).
1993 Honoring a $175,000 gift from Clifton E. Pleasants, Clifton E. Pleasants Jr., and the Pleasants Family, the University Library named the assembly room in Wilson Library the "Pleasants Family Assembly Room." Income from the endowment is used to purchase items for the Library's special collections units.
1993 Davie Poplar III was planted, marking the bicentennial of the University. The tree is a descendant of the original Davie Poplar.
1993 The men's basketball team defeated the University of Michigan to win Dean Smith's second NCAA national championship. Led by Final Four Most Outstanding Player Donald Williams, the Tar Heels won 77-71.
1993 Sixteen student protesters were arrested in South Building following an occupation of the Chancellor's office in protest of administrative inaction on the building of a freestanding Black Cultural Center at UNC. It was the largest mass arrest of students since the Vietnam War era.
1993 Governor James B. Hunt, Jr., attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new School of Social Work building, which is now known as the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building.
1993 Following several months of discussion and controversy, the Board of Trustees selected the Coker Woods site as the location for the Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center.
1993 The Grateful Dead played the first of two sold-out shows at the Dean Smith Center.
1993 As part of the University's two-hundredth anniversary commemoration, the United States Postal Service issued a postal card depicting Playmakers Theatre.
1994 Dr. Martin Rodbell, adjunct professor of biochemistry, was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for his part in the discovery of G-proteins and their role in turning signals from light, hormones, and some chemicals into action within cells.
1994 The women's soccer team lost its first home game ever, falling to Duke University by a score of 3-2.
1994 The women's basketball team won the NCAA national championship, defeating Louisiana Tech University 60-59 on a last second shot by Charlotte Smith. On the way to being named the Final Four's Most Valuable Player, Smith scored 20 points and grabbed 23 rebounds in the championship game.
1994 Student-operated WXYC-FM became the first radio station in the world to offer a live internet simulcast of an off-air signal.
1994 Geneticist Francis Collins spoke at the University's 192nd commencement, which marked the official end to the University's bicentennial celebration.
1994 In a contest against North Carolina A & T University, women's basketball player Charlotte Smith dunked a basketball, becoming the second woman to do such during a regulation game.
1994 The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, located on the eastern edge of the University's campus, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
1994 The men's basketball teams of Duke University and the University of North Carolina played against each other for the first time as the #1 and #2 ranked teams in the nation, respectively. The Tar Heels defeated the Blue Devils 89-78 at the Dean E. Smith Center Student Activities Center.
1995 Although virtually unenforceable for twenty-seven years, the Speaker Ban Law was finally repealed by the General Assembly.
1995 Wendell Williamson, a third-year law student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shot and killed two people on Chapel Hill's Henderson Street. The victims were university sophomore and lacrosse player Kevin Reichardt and Chapel Hill resident Ralph W. Walker, Jr. In addition, Williamson shot and wounded two other individuals.
1995 Michael Hooker officially assumed the office of chancellor.
1995 Torrential rains soaked the campus and town of Chapel Hill. The flooding was severe enough that residents of Granville Towers, an off-campus, private residence hall, had to be evacuated.
1996 Five University students died in a fire that gutted the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house on West Cameron Avenue.
1996 Quoting rap lyrics and discussing hip-hop performers, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson delivered a controversial December commencement address, the title of which was "Is America Still a Dream?"
1996 Hurricane Fran devastated coastal and central portions of North Carolina. It also caused major destruction on the University's campus and in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
1997 With win number 877, which came against the University of Colorado, men's basketball head coach Dean Smith broke former University of Kentucky head coach Adolph Rupp's record for most wins by a Division I coach.
1997 Men's basketball head coach Dean Smith announced his retirement. The former all-time win leader in NCAA Division I, Smith led the Tar Heels from 1961 to 1997.
1997 Molly Corbett Broad was appointed as president of the University of North Carolina (multi-campus system), becoming the first woman to hold this position. She previously served in the California State University system as the executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer.
1997 The inaugural Tar Heel Bus Tour left Chapel Hill for a five-day outing around North Carolina. The program gives new faculty members a head start on learning about the state in which they work.
1997 Head football coach Mack Brown left the University for the head coaching job at the University of Texas.
1997 Dr. Jerry Linenger lifted off on STS-81 (Space Shuttle Atlantis) for a four-month stay in the MIR Space Station. He graduated from the University with a master of public health degree in 1989 and a doctor of philosophy degree in 1990.
1997 Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, spoke at the dedication ceremony for the McColl Building, the new home of the Kenan-Flagler Business School. The building was named for University alumnus Hugh L. McColl, chairman and chief executive officer of NationsBank Corporation.
1998 Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight made a surprise visit to the International Studies 92 (Economics, Ethics, and Impact of the Global Economy) class to discuss global economic issues.
1998 Molly Corbett Broad was inaugurated at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh as president of the University of North Carolina (multi-campus system). President Broad was the first woman to hold this position.
1998 Carolina Union President Amy Lawler calls for the student body to "take a stand and show your support for the Union. It is our turn to leave a mark on this University." The student body agreed overwhelmingly and passed the Renovation and Expansion Referendum, which gave approval for an increase in student fees to pay for the $14.2 million project.
1998 Chancellor Michael Hooker unveiled "The Carolina Computing Initiative," an effort to ensure that students, faculty and staff have easy access to high-quality and affordable technology and the ability to effectively utilize it.
1999 The University began "Carolina First," a $1.8 billion fund-raising campaign.
1999 The Carolina Inn was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
1999 The University's first Summer Reading Program discussion groups took place. Led by selected faculty and staff, first-year students discussed "There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing up in the Other America" by Alex Kotlowitz.
2000 The University held a convocation ceremony for Chancellor James Moeser.
2000 The University held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Frank Porter Graham Student Union renovation and expansion.
2002 Senator Paul Wellstone (Democrat, Minnesota) was killed in a plane crash along with his wife, daughter, three political aides, and the plane's pilots. Wellstone received an A.B. in 1965 and Ph.D. in 1969 from the University.
2002 Prior to an $18 million, three-year renovation of Memorial Hall, the University held a ceremonial closing of the campus landmark.
2002 The UNC baseball team completed a three-game sweep of Duke. With the wins and resulting points, the Tar Heels won their first Carlyle Cup competition.
2002 The newly renovated and expanded Frank Porter Graham Student Union opened. The University celebrated the event with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and remarks by Chancellor James Moeser, Union director Don Luse, and Union president Charles Phaneuf.
2003 Chancellor James Moeser announced the Carolina Covenant, an initiative to give children of low-income families an opportunity to graduate from the University debt-free if they work on campus 10 to 12 hours weekly in a federal work-study job throughout their four years. The University meets the rest of students' needs through a combination of federal, state, university, and private grants and scholarships.
2003 Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan and an alumna of the University, delivered the keynote address for the Graduate School's centennial celebration.
2003 Men's basketball coach Matt Doherty resigned. Selected in 2000 to take over the Tar Heels after Bill Guthridge retired, Doherty served as head coach for three seasons. Previously, he held coaching jobs at the University of Kansas and the University of Notre Dame. Doherty was a four year basketball letter winner and 1984 graduate of the University.
2003 A centennial birthday party was held for the Coker Arboretum, which was named for its creator and the University's first professor of botany, Dr. William Chambers Coker.
2003 One week after leading the University of Kansas men's basketball team to the national championship game, Roy Williams was hired to replace Matt Doherty as men's basketball head coach at the University. Williams spent fifteen seasons as the Kansas head coach and ten years as assistant coach under Dean E. Smith.
2003 Men's basketball coach Roy Williams coached and won his first official game as head coach, leading the Tar Heels to a 90-64 win over Old Dominion University at the Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center.
2003 Comedian Bill Cosby delivered the commencement address at Kenan Memorial Stadium.
2003 The University's "Carolina First" fund-raising campaign reached the $1 billion mark.
2003 The women's soccer team defeated the University of Connecticut 6-0 to win their eighteenth national championship. The Tar Heels scored 32 goals and allowed none during the NCAA tournament, finishing the season a perfect 27-0-0.
2003 The men's basketball team recorded its 500th Atlantic Coast Conference win, defeating Florida State University 61-60.
2003 The University announced the receipt of a $20 million gift to the School of Pharmacy from Fred Eshelman of Wilmington.
2004 The Order of the Golden Fleece celebrated its centennial. As part of the observance, Francis Collins, University alumnus and director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, delivered an address about personal excellence in Hill Hall.
2004 The Paul and Sheila Wellstone Memorial Garden, which is near Murphey Hall, was dedicated.
2004 Connor Barth's 42-yard field goal as time expired led the Tar Heels to an upset victory over Miami, Tar Heels' first ever win over a team ranked in the top 5.
2004 SOAR, the Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research, was formally dedicated. A collaboration of UNC-Chapel Hill, Michigan State University, the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory, and the Ministry of Science of Brazil, the observatory is a state-of-the-art, lightweight, computer-controlled, four-meter telescope that sits atop Cerro Pachon, a nine thousand-foot mountain in Chileäó»s northern Andes Mountains.
2004 "The Gift" was dedicated. A mosaic of light-colored brick, it is the campus's first monument to Native Americans. Haliwa-Saponi artist Senora Lynch of Warrenton, North Carolina, created the public art. "The Gift" can be found on the courtyard between the old and new Student Union buildings.
2004 The University celebrated a groundbreaking for its new state-of-the-art Carolina Physical Science Complex. The $205 million complex is the largest construction project in the history of the University (as of 2004).
2004 The Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice statue was unveiled at a dedication ceremony in front of the Kenan Football Center.
2004 The University celebrated a groundbreaking ceremony for the Global Education Center, which will house the University Center for International Studies and other components related to international education.
2004 Members of the Black Student Movement led the dedication of a new memorial marker for the African Americation section of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
2004 Julius Chambers addressed the Class of 2004 in Kenan Memorial Stadium. Chambers graduated first in his class from the UNC School of Law in 1962, having also been editor-in-chief for the North Carolina Law Review (the first African American to hold this title in any historically white law school in the South).
2004 The Frank Porter Graham Student Union Renovation and Expansion was completed. Seventy-two years after Graham Memorial opened, the entire Union re-opens to continue to serve as Edward Kidder Graham called, "a student club house building large enough to center and contain religious, social, and general student activities for the whole college."
2004 Governor Mike Easley signed into law House Bill 1264, which provides $180 million in funding for a new cancer hospital to be built by the UNC Health Care System.
2004 The University celebrated the opening of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.
2004 The School of Government celebrated the dedication of the newly renovated and expanded Knapp-Sanders building.
2004 With funding provided by the estate of Lois T. Harris, the University illuminated the exterior of the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower.
2005 Erskine Bowles, UNC Class of 1967, was unanimously elected by the Board of Governors to be the president of the University of North Carolina System.
2005 The Memorial Grove was dedicated in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Just east of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, the area is an ash cemetery for deceased University-associated individuals.
2005 The University's men's basketball team won the NCAA Division I national championship by defeating the University of Illinois 75-70. The victory brought head coach Roy Williams his first national championship and the University its fifth.
2005 Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was on campus to deliver the Robert and Helen Siler Distinguished Lecture. Kennedy's talk, which was titled "A Contract With Our Future," was also a part of UNC's Earth Day observance.
2005 The University held a dedication ceremony for the $20 million addition to Carrington Hall, which houses the School of Nursing.
2005 The University held a dedication ceremony of the Unsung Founders Memorial, a gift from the Class of 2002.
2005 The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) was dedicated. Located in Sutherland, a small town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, the telescope resulted from a consortium of international partners, including the University of North Carolina.
2005 The 5,000-pound top of the Unsung Founders Memorial on McCorkle Place was installed by Facilities Services. The sculpture was the culmination of a three-year collaboration between the Class of 2002 and Korean sculptor Do-Ho Suh as the class's gift to the University. The inscription reads "The Class of 2002 honors the University's Unsung Founders--the people of color, both bond and free who physically built the University we all know today."
2005 Musician Bonnie Raitt performed at Memorial Hall as a part of the Carolina Performing Arts Series.
2005 Mary Frances Berry was the featured speaker at the University's first campus-wide lecture for African American History Month. Berry was the first female to head the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The title of her lecture was "Callie House and the Black Reparations Movement 1897 to the Present."
2005 Led by former presidential candidate John Edwards, a graduate of the University's School of Law, the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity was launched.
2005 The University held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Genetic Medicine Building.
2005 The University held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the re-opening of the newly renovated Memorial Hall.
2005 Tony Bennett gave the newly renovated Memorial Halläó»s first performance, äóěA Prelude to an Opening.äóť
2005 äóěA Classical Opening,äóť featuring violinist Itzhak Perlman, violinist/violist Pinchas Zukerman and the North Carolina Symphony, led by Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, took place at the newly renovated Memorial Hall.
2005 The University held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new North Carolina Cancer Hospital.
2006 The University announced the establishment of the American Indian Center.
2006 The University held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Burnett-Womack Clinical Sciences Building.
2006 The Board of Trustees agreed to rename Hinton James North residence hall after George Moses Horton, an enslaved African American poet.
2006 The Old Medical Sciences Research Building, completed in 1962, was named in honor of Dr. Stuart Bondurant, a former dean of the medical school. After closing in 2003 for a more than $17 million renovation, the facility reopened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on this day.
2006 The University held a dedication ceremony for the Max C. Chapman Jr. Hall, one of two buildings in the first phase of the $205 million Carolina Physical Science Complex.
2006 The University held a naming ceremony for the Gary R. Tomkins Chilled Water Operations Center.
2006 The University announced the receipt of an $8 million gift from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust. The funds will be used to create 16 full music scholarships and to complete funding for a new music building, which will be called the Kenan Music Building.
2006 The first full-time director of the Carolina Women's Center, Donna Bickford, started work at UNC.
2006 Erskine Bowles, UNC Class of 1967, began his tenure as president of the University of North Carolina (multi-campus system), succeeding Molly Corbett Broad.
2006 The University hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Ernie Williamson Athletics Center.
2006 The University held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Core Laboratory building in Kannapolis, North Carolina. The building will be part of the North Carolina Research Campus.
2007 The University dedicated the Paul Hardin Residence Hall, renaming Morrison South after the former chancellor, who served from 1988 to 1995.
2007 Dr. Cornel West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion at Princeton University, delivered the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture in Memorial Hall.
2007 The University dedicated the George Moses Horton Residence Hall, renaming Hinton James North after the enslaved African American poet.
2007 The John Motley Morehead Foundation announced the receipt of a $100 million gift from the Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation of Texas. The funds will be used to support and expand the Morehead Scholars program. In recognition of the donation, the organization changed its name to the Morehead-Cain Foundation.
2007 With a $50 million gift to the School of Public Health from Dennis and Joan Gillings, the University's "Carolina First" fund-raising campaign reached and surged past the $2 billion mark.
2015 The Board of Trustees voted to change the name of Saunders Hall to Carolina Hall. At the same meeting, they imposed a 16 year moratorium on any additional renaming.
2018 UNC-Chapel Hill doctoral student and activist Maya Little demonstrated in protest of the Confederate Monument on McCorkle Place known as "Silent Sam", pouring a mixture of red ink and their own blood onto the base of the monument. Little told the Daily Tar Heel, “I smeared my blood and red ink on the statue because the statue was lacking proper historical context. This statue, Silent Sam, was built on white supremacy. It was built by white supremacists. It was built by people who believed that Black people were inferior and wanted to intimidate them. So these statues were built on Black blood. These statues symbolize the violence toward Black people. Without that blood on the statue, it’s incomplete, in my opinion. It’s not properly contextualized.” (Daily Tar Heel, 5/1/2018)
2018 Following a rally on Franklin Street, protesters pulled down the statue atop the Confederate monument on McCorkle Place known as "Silent Sam."