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.
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.