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History and Traditions
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North Hall and South Hall from the East, 1874,
with the watchman's cottage at College Avenue entrance to campus
at lower left. |
1868 Engineering
at Berkeley is Born
Engineering education and innovation have been
part of the University of California since it was chartered.
More...
1873 The
First Graduates
The first engineering bachelor's degree was granted
by the College of Civil Engineering. In 1876, the first woman received
a Berkeley engineering degree. The first master's degree was awarded
in 1896; the first doctorate in 1894.
1890s Bright
Ideas Keep the Lights On
In the late 19th century, the staff and students
installed most of the college's machinery and contributed to the development
of campus equipment. More...
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Cartoonist Rube Goldberg made his mark by
making light of the discipline he studied. |
1904 Rube
Goldberg, Engineer and Cartoonist, Graduates
One of the College of Engineering's most famous
alumni made his mark by making light of the very discipline he studied.
Cartoonist Rube Goldberg's absurdly complex mechanisms for achieving
easy results are so ingrained in popular culture that the artist/engineer's
name appears in the dictionary as an adjective. More...
1907 Hearst
Memorial Mining Building Opens
Philanthropist Phoebe Apperson Hearst memoralized
her late husband, mining mogul and U.S. Senator George Hearst, with
a building to provide mining students with the very best lab facilities
anywhere. Long recognized as one of the best examples of Beaux-Arts
architecture in the country, Hearst Mining, an architectural gem,
is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. More...
1946 T.Y.
Lin Pioneers the Use of Prestressed Concrete and Proposes a Bridge
Across Gibraltar
Often called the greatest structural engineer in
the world, Tung-Yen Lin (CE '33) pioneered the use of prestressed
concrete, combining the tensile strength of steel with concrete's
resistance to compression. As leader of T.Y. Lin International, which
he founded in 1953, the engineer built innovative bridges in Costa
Rica, Libya, Taipei, Taiwan, and of course the United States.
More...
1948 Engineering
Research Hits New Heights
As a result of the increased research tasks during
World War II, which were supported by off-campus agencies, the college
established the Institute of Engineering Research (now the Office
of Research Services). There activities are largely conducted by staff
members and powered mostly by grad students in facilities like the
Richmond Field Station.
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Howard P. Grant broke down racial barriers
throughout his life. |
1948 Howard
P. Grant Becomes the College's First Black Graduate
After making Berkeley history as the first black
student to graduate from the College of Engineering, Howard P. Grant
made his mark not only as a respected civil engineer but as an inspiration
and mentor to minorities throughout California and the entire country.
More...
1963 Douglas Engelbart Invents the Mouse
Each time you click your mouse, you're paying homage
to a Berkeley College of Engineering alumnus. Douglas Carl Engelbart,
who received his PhD in electrical engineering in 1955, not only invented
the mouse but helped define the way in which we interact with personal
computers to this day — from multiple windows to hypertext links.
More...
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A MESA summer program class. |
1970 Wilbur
Somerton and the Birth of the California MESA Program
Unable to fill industry recruiters' requests
for African American and Hispanic engineering graduates, mechanical
engineering professor and Berkeley alumnus Wilbur Somerton joined
with a group of dedicated educators and staff from throughout the
campus to launch Berkeley's Mathematics Engineering, Science Achievement
(MESA) Program. Today, 32,000 educationally disadvantaged students
at pre-college, community college, and university levels are supported
by the program, which is designed to prepare students to complete
baccalaureate degrees in engineering and science. More...
1972 The
Release of SPICE, Still the Industry Standard Tool for Integrated
Circuit Design
In circuit design technology, there is only
one noun that has become a verb by its very ubiquity. Developed under
the leadership of Berkeley professor Donald O. Pederson with a "cast of
thousands," the Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE)
tool or one of its myriad derivatives has been wielded in the design of
nearly every single integrated circuit developed in the last 25 years. More...
1977 Berkeley
UNIX and the Birth of Open-Source Software
In 1969, UC Berkeley electrical engineering graduate
Kenneth Thompson and his Bell Laboratories colleague Dennis Ritchie
wanted to play a computer game called "Space Travel" on
a dusty old mainframe computer. The end result was UNIX, still the
industry standard operating system, in various flavors, for workstation
and networked computing and a key component in the Internet's infrastructure.
More...
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Prototope of the InfoPad. |
1990 Birth
of the InfoPad, One of the First Mobile, Wireless Internet Devices
Before e-mail pagers and mobile phones with Web
access, even before the World Wide Web, Berkeley's InfoPad introduced
the concept of the mobile, wireless, Internet appliance. More...
1994 Alumnus'
Chunnel Feat Defies the 'Impossible'
Mechanical engineering alumnus John Neerhout seized
an opportunity to achieve the "impossible" -- with dazzling
results. In 1990, he was asked to take over as project chief executive
for construction of the Channel Tunnel, linking France and England
across the English Channel. The Chunnel opened four years later.
More...
2002 The
Rededication of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building
Built in 1907 and closed in 1998 for renovation,
the Hearst Memorial Mining building reopened its doors in September
2002 as UC Berkeley's state-of-the-art home to the Department of Materials
Science & Engineering, the temporary hub for CITRIS — the Center
for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, and
interdisciplinary initiatives in nanoscience and nanotechnology.
More...
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Celebrate
135 Years of Leadership!
Learn about the deans that have shaped Berkeley Engineering
in the Dean's
Gallery.
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Cal Quiz
1. What
piece of precious metal that has more historical than monetary
value can be found in the Bancroft Library on campus?
2. What
was the largest crowd ever to see an event at Memorial Stadium?
3. Describe the tribute that William Randolph Hearst proposed to build for his mother, UC Berkeley benefactor Phoebe Randolph Hearst, in the 1920s.
Answers...
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