The University of Chicago is founded, combining an American-style undegraduate liberal arts college with a German-style graduate research university

The University of Chicago has been a center of ancient Near Eastern studies ever since its founding in 1891. The first president of the university, William Rainey Harper, was a Professor of Semitic Languages and his brother, Robert Francis, was an Assyriologist

Eiji Asada of Japan receives the first doctoral degree awarded by the University

Tomaš Garrigue Masaryk, the first President of Czechoslovakia came to the University for a lecture series on Czech history and culture in 1902. The University’s Masaryk Club, founded in 1947, commissioned the Masaryk statue on the Midway Plaisance, sculpted by Albin Polášek, a native of Czechloslovakia and head of the sculpture department at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. The sculpture stands at the far east end of the Midway Plaisance.

The University of Chicago has been providing instruction in disciplines of the Central and East European and Eurasion region continuously since 1903, when courses in Russian language and area studies were begun. The center now known as CEERES has been in existence since 1965, and it continues to coordinate instruction and facilitate research about Russia/Eurasia and Eastern/Central Europe, including the Baltic States, Balkans, Caucasus, and Central Asia.

The University of Chicago Oriental Exploration Fund sent its first field expedition to Bismaya in Iraq. Two years later, an ambitious photographic and epigraphic survey of the temples in Nubia and Egypt was undertaken as a part of an overall project to publish all the ancient inscriptions in the Nile Valley.

Physics department chair Albert Michelson wins the Nobel Prize for his work measuring the speed of light

Professor Ernest DeWitt Burton was chosen to head a commission to investigate educational, social, and religious conditions in the Far East. John D. Rockefeller agreed to fund a study of the current situation, to be sponsored by the University of Chicago. In joining the commission, Burton fulfilled his longheld wish of going to China and assisting foreign missions

Chicago Maroons, led by coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, travel to Japan every five years for baseball matches against Waseda University.

University President Harry Pratt Judson led a Rockefeller Foundation commission that helped establish the China Medical Board. Today, medical partnerships include curricular reform, surgical ethics, and public health.

Oswald Robertson, who later chaired the UChicago Department of Medicine, discovers a way to preserve blood and establishes the first blood bank in wartime France

The Oriental Institute is founded, and funded by John D. Rockefeller, to further study of the ancient Near East. Since its establishment, the Oriental Institute has sponsored archaeological and survey expeditions in every country of the Near East. The results of Oriental Institute excavations have defined the basic chronologies for many ancient Near Eastern civilizations and have helped determine the time when mankind made the transition from hunter-gatherer to settled community life. Oriental Institute archaeologists have pioneered the use of interdisciplinary teams composed of scientists, historians and linguists, and the use of aerial surveys employing kites, balloons and aircraft to map archaeological sites

Jame Henry Breasted established the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. To date, nineteen volumes of the Assyrian Dictionary have appeared. Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon, edited by Oriental Institute staff, documents another Mesopotamian language. Other major undertakings that will have a lasting impact upon scholarship include the Chicago Demotic (Egyptian) Dictionary and the Chicago Hittite Dictionary.

The Committee on International Relations, now the nation's oldest graduate program in international affairs, is established.

For more than a century, University of Chicago collaborations in China have advanced and created fields of study, informed public policy, built scientific infrastructure, and yielded new insights. Since the founding of its Far Eastern Studies program in the 1930s, UChicago has also gained a reputation as a center for the study of Chinese languages and civilizations. The University has always been a global destination for exceptional scholars. Among the 91 Nobel Prizes awarded to UChicago faculty members, students, or researchers are three Chinese alumni who received the Nobel Prize in Physics: Chen Ning Yang, PhD’48; Tsung‑Dao Lee, PhD’50 and Daniel Tsui, SM’63, PhD’67. Yang and Lee were the first Chinese citizens to win a Nobel in any field.

Through the generous financial support of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the Oriental Institute moved into new permanent headquarters that housed laboratories, museum galleries, libraries and offices for the scientific and teaching staff. Today, this building continues to function as an internationally renowned center of ancient Near Eastern studies. Over 60,000 people visit the museum galleries each year, and hundreds of scholars come to consult the faculty and research collection

John D. Rockefeller Jr. founds International House to promote cross-cultural understanding, respect, and friendship among students

Clifford Manshardt, AB'18, initiates the proposals for what is now the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India

Between 1938 and 1939, Edvard Benes, a Czech politician who served as the President of Czechoslovakia from 1935–1938, Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1918–1935, Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1921–1922, and the President of Czechoslovakia in exile from 1939–1945 came to the University of Chicago as a visiting professor under the auspices of the Charles R. Walgreen Foundation for the Study of American Institutions.

Enrico Fermi leads the first controlled self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction

Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Dandhi visit the University of Chicago.

The Ford Foundation funds a Comparative Civilizations Project at UChicago with an initial focus on India.

The Committee on Southern Asian Studies was founded to coordinate South Asian studies on campus.

South Asia has played a key role in the Divinity School ever since the arrival of Mircea Eliade, who tooled over the field of history and religions, and made India the center of it.

The South Asia Language and Area Center is established.

Queen Elizabeth II visits the University of Chicago.

Center for East Asian Studies is established.

Willard Libby is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in the development of radiocarbon dating, which revolutionized archaeology.

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies are established.

The Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations (SALC) was founded in the Division of the Humanities and regularly offers nine modern and two classical languages of South Asia.

Notable alumni from the region include Lien Chan, PhD'65, Vice President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) under President Lee Teng-hui (1996–2000) and Masaaki Shirakawa, AM'77 – Governor, Bank of Japan (2008–2013).

The Center for International Studies is established.

The Center for Latin American Studies is established.

The eminent French philosopher Paul Ricoeur began teaching at the Divinity School.

1971, Friedrich Katz, recognized as the foremost scholar of Mexican history of his time, joins UChicago faculty. As a professor of history at the University of Chicago for four decades, Katz may be best known for his magisterial account of the Mexican Revolution, which brought Mexican history out of the realm of legend and onto the world stage of great revolutions and modern social upheavals.

Professor Janet Rowley discovers the connection between cancer and genetics.

After diplomatic relations resumed between the US and China, the University began to develop new collaborations with Chinese institutions, with President Edward H. Levi leading a 1973 University delegation to study education in China.

Johannes Adrianus Bernardus van Buitenen, the George V. Bobrinskoy Professor of Sanskrit in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations led the translation of the critical edition of the Mahābhārata.

Donald Johanson, AM'70, PhD'74, discovers "Lucy" in Ethiopia, evidence of evolution from primate to human.

Olav V, King of Norway, visits the University of Chicago.

The Edward Laroque Tinker Foundation established an endowment at the University of Chicago to support the Tinker Visiting Professor Program. Tinker Professors significantly enrich academic life and research on Latin America by giving UChicago faculty and students access to current discussions and debates generated at some of Latin America's top universities and research and cultural centers.

China’s first course in modern economics was taught in Beijing by a group of US economists that included UChicago professor and Nobel Laureate Theodore W. Schultz

The American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL) was founded to create a database of French texts. It has grown into a hub of innovation and is now a key player in the field of humanities.

Astrophysics professor Subrahmanyan Chandrasek wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars. He determined that stars with a mass greater than 1.4 times that of the sun -- now known as the "Chandrasekhar mass" -- must eventually collapse into an object of enormous density, today known as a black hole.

Kathleen Morrison began conducting archaeological research in India in 1985, and Mark Lycett joined her in 1988. In three major projects, the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey, Early Historic Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor, and Biodiversity as a Social Process: Paleoenvironments of Peninsular India, they have investigated the political ecology of southern India.

Since the early 1990s, Professor Paul Sereno has conducted several expeditions to Niger, searching for dinosaur fossils and ancient cultures. Most recently Professor Sereno and his team returned to a human burial site in Gobero in the Sahara desert, to study the people and cultures that lived there thousands of years ago. Previously, Sereno and colleagues have described several spectacular dinosaurs such as Nigersaurus and Jobaria, as well as new skeletons of the giant "SuperCroc" Sarcosuchus

University of Chicago meteorologist Tetsuya "Ted" Fujita receives the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star, from his native country of Japan.

Professor Paul Sereno announced, with his Chinese colleagues, the discovery of the world’s second-oldest fossil bird, Sinornis ("Chinese bird"). The sparrow-sized, 135- million-year-old bird is the oldest known creature that could fly and perch like modern birds.

The University of Chicago was named one of the first six Centers of Excellence by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Executive MBA classes begin at Chicago Booth's Barcelona campus.

Professor Robert Townsend launched the Townsend Thai Project, which bridges economic research and policy creation by bringing together one of the most detailed and longest running panel datasets in the developing world and a robust archive of secondary data for Thailand.

Executive MBA classes begin at Chicago Booth's Singapore campus.

UChicago Professor and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Paul Sereno joined an expedition led by Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Society of India and Ashok Sahni of Panjab University to uncover Rajasaurus narmadensis, the first fossil remains of a dinosaur found in India.

The France Chicago Center at the University of Chicago was founded through a challenge grant from the French government. Each year the FCC hosts 15 to 20 visiting scholars and organizes 60 to 80 public events. The FCC also supported over $1M in seed funding for scientific research collaborations between UChicago and French scientists.

The University of Chicago Center in Paris opens.

Mexican President Vincente Fox inaugurates the Katz Center for Mexican Studies.

Chicago Booth relocates Barcelona campus to London.

UChicago-led South Pole Telescope begins exploring dark energy.

Chicago Booth launches a global version of the New Venture Challenge, helping students turn entrepreneurial ideas into viable businesses.

Oxford University Press published a three-volume, career-spanning collection of the writings of Professors Emeriti of Political Science, Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, titled Explaining Indian Democracy: A Fifty-Year Perspective.

The Katz Center for Mexican Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies announced the establishment of a Visiting Professorship and Student Exchange Program between the University of Chicago and El Colegio de México.

The University of Chicago, through the Katz Center for Mexican Studies, and Mexico's National Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA) signed an agreement to establish the Cátedra Cultural México-Katz at the University of Chicago. As part of the agreement, Mexican creative artists and academics from a wide array of disciplines visit the University of Chicago to offer lectures, performances, seminars, and courses.

The University of Chicago Center in Beijing opens.

Physicists at UChicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, with partners in Switzerland, announce the discovery of the elusive Higgs boson.

A $1.5 million gift from India’s Ministry of Culture helped establish the Vivekananda Chair, a UChicago visiting professorship in Indian studies to build on the University’s strong ties to India.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club University of Chicago Academic Complex | The University of Chicago Francis and Rose Yuen Campus in Hong Kong opens.