About Cornell

While working for Samuel Morse, Ezra Cornell devises a way to use electricity and magnetism to string telegraph wires on glass-insulated poles aboveground. He takes much of his pay in stock, becoming the largest stockholder of Western Union. The success of the telegraph enables him to found Cornell University in 1865.

President Lincoln signs the Morrill Act into law. New York State Governor Fenton signs the Cornell charter. Together, these signatures establish Cornell as New York's first land grant university. Ezra Cornell states: "Finally, I trust we have laid the foundation of an University—an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."

The original set of nine bells first ring out from ground level at the University's opening ceremonies October 7, 1868. In 1873 they find a permanent home in McGraw Tower and have since been recast and expanded to 21 bells. They continue to ring daily concerts, making them one of the largest and most frequently played chimes in the world.

Sage College welcomes 25 female students, making Cornell a pioneer in coeducation and attracting many applicants. Early graduates include two college presidents, Julia Josephine Thomas Irvine (Wellesley) and Martha Carey Thomas (Bryn Mawr); a publisher and author, Ruth Putnam; and noted Cornell professor and scientist, Anna Botsford Comstock.

Seven Cornell undergraduates found the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity on campus. Initially started as a study and support group, it becomes the first intercollegiate fraternity for African-American men in the nation and quickly evolves into an organization built on defending the rights of African-Americans through social action.

In an address marking the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Cornell University charter, distinguished teacher, scholar and historian Carl L. Becker captures the spirit of the university with a phrase that would become a Cornell trademark: freedom and responsibility.

At its opening, the Wilson Synchrotron is Cornell's largest single construction and the world's largest particle accelerator, for use in physics, materials science and biology. With expansions over the years, the facility includes a tunnel buried 40 feet beneath Cornell's track complex, creating a giant ring with a half-mile circumference.

A burning crucifix on the porch of the Wari House Black women's housing cooperative compels more than 100 members of the Afro-American Society to occupy Willard Straight Hall for a day and a half. Soon after, 5,000 students take over Barton Hall in support of the Society's demands, prompting decades of sociocultural and political change on campus.

Pioneer 10 begins a 3,000-light-year voyage, the first spacecraft to travel beyond our solar system. In hope of communicating with extraterrestrials, NASA enlists Cornell astronomers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan to design a pictorial greeting. The image depicts Earth as the origin of the message.

Based solely on audience recordings, future Grateful Dead Archivist Dick Latvala declares one show in the band's 1977 tour possibly their best performance ever. That show? The Grateful Dead's concert in Barton Hall on May 8, 1977. The show becomes a "you had to be there" moment and recordings of it are a must-have in any fan's collection.

Akwe:kon residence hall opens its doors, becoming the first university residence in the U.S. built to celebrate North American Indigenous heritage. Akwe:kon, which means “all of us” in the Mohawk language, is envisioned as a means for teaching people about Indigenous cultures and histories and is home to innovative and successful intercultural programming in conjunction with Cornell’s American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program. Cornell later celebrates the Cayuga Nation with the naming of Ganędagǫ: Hall in 2021.

In October, a hollowed-out pumpkin appears atop the spire of McGraw Tower, attracting months of international attention. It sits there, unreachable, for five months until workers testing crane equipment accidentally knock it down. The mystery of how the pumpkin made it there to begin with remains unsolved.

Twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity land on Mars, embarking on three-month missions led by Cornell astronomy professor Steve Squyres. Extensive data collected by the rovers in the ten years since have provided new insights into the possibility of water on the red planet and the general composition of Mars.

A student-designed water plant brings clean, treated water to the Honduran town of Támara as part of Cornell's AguaClara Project. Led by civil and environmental engineer Monroe Weber-Shirk, the project works with students and villagers to bring cost-effective, municipal-scale water treatment technologies to communities in Honduras and now India.

A new baroque organ debuts to a full house in Anabel Taylor Chapel. Construction of the massive, 1,827-pipe instrument—the first in the world to be equipped with wind systems that let it reproduce sounds exactly as Bach and other period composers intended—employed authentic 18th-century techniques.

The first phase of Cornell Tech opens on Roosevelt Island, close to the heart of New York City. The campus is a space where graduate students focus on the intersection between technology and entrepreneurship, allowing it to become the urban nexus for fast-tracking tech solutions that have immediate relevance to New York City and the world.