Oct. 16, 1875 Brigham Young establishes Brigham Young Academy
Jan. 6, 1876 The academy opens with 70 students
July 18, 1896 The academy is incorporated as a subsidiary of the LDS Church, ensuring financial support for the school.
1897 BYA grants its first college degrees.
October 1903 The board of directors formally changes the academy's name to Brigham Young University.
May 3, 1908 The LDS Church recognizes BYU as the official church university.
April 6, 1917 The U.S. enters World War I; 16 BYU students killed in the war.
1919 BYU awards its first master's degrees.
Fall 1920 Football is reinstated at BYU after the church's Board of Education lifts its 19-year ban on the sport.
Oct. 1, 1923 The university adopts the cougar as its mascot.
Feb. 2, 1939 The BYU Board of Trustees is changed to be made up of LDS Church General Authorities.
Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor; 119 BYU students killed in World War II.
1944-45 Women outnumber men on campus 6 to 1. Homecoming, football, and Leadership Week are canceled.
Fall 1945 Enrollment, which had dwindled from a pre-war high of 2,375 to a low of 884 in 1943, balloons to 2,700 as veterans return to campus.
1948 Students in the Blue Key Honorary Fraternity write BYU's first honor code.
June 26, 1950 American involvement in the Korean War begins; 10 BYU students are killed in the war.
June 2, 1961 BYU awards its first doctoral degrees.
1964 Administrators require students who are not LDS to pay higher tuition rates.
December 1964 One month after losing a race for the U.S. Senate to a Democrat, President Ernest J. Wilkinson returns after a nearly year-long absence.Comment on this story
1970 The board establishes an enrollment cap of 25,000.
Aug. 27, 1973 The J. Reuben Clark Law School opens with Rex E. Lee as its founding dean.
May 1975 The Graduate School of Management is founded, with Merrill J. Bateman as dean.
1976 The enrollment cap is increased to 27,000.
1987 The BYU Jerusalem Center opens in Israel.
1997 Enrollment cap rises to 29,000.
August 2003 BYU is the No. 1 "stone-cold sober" school in the nation for a fifth straight year, according to the Princeton Review.