Timeline
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Take a walk through the past with our 200th anniversary timeline marking the major moments in our history.
A snapshot of our 200-year academic history
| 1818 | George Ramsay, the ninth Earl of Dalhousie, founds Dalhousie College on principles of religious toleration. The campus faces the Grand Parade where Halifax’s City Hall now stands. |
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| 1866 | The first arts degree is awarded. |
| 1869 | The Dalhousie Gazette, Canada’s first college newspaper, is founded. |
| 1881 | Women are admitted to Dalhousie with equal access to scholarships and awards. |
| 1887 | Dalhousie moves to the Forrest Building on what is today Carleton Campus. |
| 1894 | Annie Isabella Hamilton, first woman to earn a medical degree from Dalhousie. |
| 1896 | James Robinson Johnston becomes the university’s first black graduate, earning his law degree in 1898. |
| 1911 | Dalhousie moves from Forrest to the Studley Campus, where the buildings are constructed from ironstone quarried across the Northwest Arm to campus. |
| 1949 | The Faculty of Graduate Studies is established, strengthening Dalhousie’s capacity for advanced education. |
| 1966 | The great support of Dorothy J. Killam, in recognition of Izaak Walton Killam, creates an endowment to further graduate studies. In honor of her philanthropy, the Dorothy J. Killam Memorial Lecture Series brings great minds to campus every year. |
| 1957 | C.D. Howe is named Dalhousie’s first chancellor. |
| 1967 | Queen Elizabeth, consort of King George VI, officially opens the Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building and receives an honorary degree. |
| 1968 | Lady Beaverbrook (formerly Lady Dunn), one of the university’s most generous patrons, becomes its second chancellor. |
| 1968 | Expansion along University Avenue includes the new Student Union Building and excavation and construction for the Killam Memorial Library and the Dalhousie Arts Centre. |
| 1979 | After years of planning – including a dispute between Dal and the City of Halifax over zoning that was heard by the Supreme Court of Canada – Dalplex, the university’s new recreation facility, is opened with an innovative “air structure” roof. |
| 1985 | CKDU, Dalhousie’s community radio station, hits the airwaves. |
| 1989 | Four years after the previous law library was destroyed in a fire, the Sir James Dunn Library opens in the Weldon Law Building. |
| 1997 | The Technical University of Nova Scotia and Dalhousie University merge. |
| 2001 | The Marion McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building creates a united home for faculty, staff and students in the Faculty of Arts. |
| 2005 | The Kenneth C. Rowe Faculty of Management Building opens, capping the $25-million Management Without Borders campaign and uniting Business Administration, Public Administration, Library and Information Studies and Resource and Environmental Studies. |
| 2010 | A $20-million donation from Seymour Schulich is the largest gift of its kind ever made to a Canadian law school. The gift funds 40 new annual scholarships, creating greater student accessibility. |
| 2012 | The Nova Scotia Agricultural College and Dalhousie University merge. |
| 2013 | Richard Florizone, Dalhousie’s current president, begins his first term in office. |
| 2013 | The Steele Ocean Sciences Building is added to the west end of the Life Sciences Centre, connected by an atrium with the oceanography wing. |
| 2015 | The Collaborative Health Education Building opens and provides an integrated learning experience for the university's 3,700 Medicine, Dentistry and Health students. |
| 2016 | The Mi’kmaq Grand Council Flag is permanently installed on the Agricultural Campus in June and on Studley Campus and Sexton Campus in October. |
| 2018 | The IDEA Project's (which stands for Innovation and Design in Engineering and Architecture) $64-million transformation of the downtown campus ushers in a new era in engineering, architecture and planning education. |