1789 – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill receives its charter as the first public university in the nation.

1790 – In Orange County there are 2060 slaves and 10,055 whites.

1829 – University Trustee Thomas Ruffin serves on the North Carolina Supreme Court, where he wrote one of the most important decisions in the law of American slavery. In State v. Mann, he banned the prosecution of masters for mistreating slaves by ruling that “the power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect.”

1851 – The university named a library for Benjamin Smith, one of the original forty trustees who owned 221 slaves.

1860 – Slaves comprised about one third of Orange County’s population.

1861 – NC Governor Lowry Swain persuaded Confederate President Jefferson Davis to exempt some students from the draft.

1879 – Women are now allowed to attend the summer teachers’ institute.

1898 – Sallie Walker Stockard becomes the first woman to graduate from UNC Chapel Hill.

1907 – The University Woman’s Club established.

1913 – Silent Sam is unveiled in McCorkle Place with support from the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

1915 – Leaders of UNC broadened the mission of the University to include research and public service.

1920 – Hiring of Howard Washington Odum – Kenan professor of sociology. Helped launch the Department of Sociology and the School of Public Welfare. (1)

1922 – Journal of Social Forces to “expose the facts, to encourage the organization of reform, and to smooth the course of social change or, as he put it, to make ‘democracy effective in the unequal places.’” (1)

1925 – Evolution teaching controversy — Poole antievolution bill. (1)

1931 – The university joined the North Carolina College for Women or Women’s College at Greensboro (later the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering at Raleigh (later North Carolina State University) to form the consolidated University of North Carolina System, controlled by a board of trustees and having a single president with offices on the Chapel Hill campus. (1)

1933 – Controversy over quota system for Jewish admissions to medical school. (1)

1936 – The School of Public Health was established. (1)

1942 – became one of four preflight centers for the training of naval pilots – increased military training programs kept enrollment up while civilian enrollment fell (1)

1949 – The Division of Health Affairs established – making the university one of the few in the nation with schools in the five health professions-dentistry, nursing, medicine, pharmacy, and public health. (1)

1950 – four black students denied entry to law school at Chapel Hill but reversed by US fourth circuit court (1)

1951 – black students allowed to enter UNC medical school; also, four black students allowed to enter law school. (1)

1953 – UNC’s first radio station, now WUNC-FM, had its beginnings when students began broadcasting part-time from Swain Hall (1)

1955 – The university admitted black undergraduate students for the first time, following the 1951 order by federal courts to integrate its law, medical, and graduate schools. (1)

1955 – a public television station (now WUNC-TV) was started in 1955 (1)

1958 – the Ackland Art Museum (1)

1959- Rev. John R. Manley becomes the first black member of the Chapel Hill school board. ()

1960, May 12th- Martin Luther King attends Chapel Hill to give a speech. (4)

1960- Chapel Hill School Board allows desegregation for the first time by permitting families of first graders the ability to request transfers to closer schools regardless of their race. In addition, the school board approved one black student to transfer to Chapel Hill Junior High. (4)

1963-1970 Anti-War protests take place on campus, including marches and sit-ins. While they began in 1963, they didn’t take full force until later in the decade as the Vietnam War continued. (6)

1963- A chapter of the Student Peace Union (SPU) is formed on campus. A bit later that year the SPU joined the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and staged a protest against the local Armed Forces Day ceremony. A counter protest was held by a group of students from Ruffin dorm where they chanted “SPU-red” to link the peace marchers to Communism. (6)

1964- Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, spoke to a crowd of students in Memorial Hall and following this speech the Student Government sponsored a National Issues Week relating to the war. (6)

1960-1964 Civil Rights Protests and Integration Sit-Ins. (Major Event)

1963-1966 Public Speakers Ban (Major Event)

1965- The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was formed on campus. This organization was generally considered more radical than the SPU. (6)

1966- The UNC School of Education established the Upward Bound Program to provide academic and cultural support to first generation college students and students from low income households. (5)

1967- Vietnam Summer: a group of students, faculty, and townspeople dedicated their summer to teaching others about the war in Vietnam. This effort was supported by the Campus Y. (6)

1967-1973 Weekly Peace Vigil- Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom began weekly vigils on January 4, 1967, and continues until 1973 when the bombing of Cambodia ended. (4)

1968-1969 Food Workers Strike (Major Event)

1970- Students marched down Franklin Street carrying empty coffins as a protest of the Vietnam War and the Kent State Tragedy. (6)

1979-  Chi Phi fraternity hosts a party with many students dressed in black face while others sported white hoods as part of a Ku Klux Klan costume. A picture was published in the school year book, the Yackety Yack, with two students dressed as Klan members holding a noose around the neck of another student wearing blackface. (3)

1982 October 21- UNC students hold a rally calling for UNC to end its business relations with IBM due to IBM’s business presence in South Africa

1985 January 26th- 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 October- UNC Anti-Apartheid Support Group formed

1986 March 18- The UNC Anti-Apartheid Support Group builds several shanties in front of South Building in order to draw attention to their cause and to express sympathy for South Africans forced to live in shantytowns. Campus police dismantle the structures, which are rebuilt later in the day after the group receives permission from Chancellor Fordham

1987 October 1- UNC Endowment Board agrees to divest all funds from South African companies. The change of mind is due partly to the ongoing protests, but also due to diminishing returns in those funds.

1991 June 25- The controversial “Student Body” sculpture was relocated from the front of Davis Library to a courtyard behind Manning Hall.

1998 February 10- Carolina Union President Amy Lawler calls for the student body to “take a stand and show your support for the Union. The student body agreed 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 April 29- Molly Corbett Broad was inaugurated at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh as president of the University of North Carolina. President Broad was the first woman to hold this position.

2004 April 20- “The Gift” was dedicated. A mosaic of light-colored brick, it is the campuses first monument to Native Americans. Senora Lynch created the public art. “The Gift” can be found on the courtyard between the old and new Student Union buildings.

2004 August 21- The University celebrated the opening of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

2004 November 19- 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.

2005 May 11- The installation of the Unsung Founders Memorial. 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.”

2006 September 7- The University announced the establishment of the American Indian Center.

2017 August 22- UNC students organize a protest against Silent Sam, two protesters are arrested.

2018 April 20- UNC students organize a protest against Silent Sam. Ending with the students taking down Silent Sam down from its pedestal. (Major Event)

2018 April 24- Revolt Against Folt, art students protest the unfair budget cuts and leaky roof in the art department.

2018 October 25- UNC student Farm Workers Alliance protests Wendy’s on campus for the alleged injustice towards farm workers through the Fair Food Program.

2018 December 4- Maya Little defaced Silent Sam with paint and her own blood stating she is giving the statue “proper historical context.”

2019 January 14- Chancellor Folt announced she was stepping down from office and put in her statement that Silent Sam would not be put back up in McCorkle place.

2019 April 24- UNC students walked out if class to protest Police Brutality