Founding
Made possible by President Lincoln's signing of the Morrill Act in 1862, the University of California was founded in 1868 as the state's first land-grant university, inheriting … See more

Berkeley is a large, primarily residential Tier One research university with a majority of its enrollment in undergraduate programs but also … See more

A number of significant inventions and discoveries have been made by Berkeley faculty members and researchers:
Natural sciences
• Atomic bomb – Physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was wartime director of Los Alamos National Laboratory See more

The official university mascot is Oski the Bear, who debuted in 1941. Previously, live bear cubs were used as mascots at Memorial Stadium until it was decided in 1940 that a costumed mascot would be a better alternative. Named after the Oski-wow-wow yell, … See more

Although the University of California system does not have an official flagship campus, many scholars and experts consider Berkeley to be its unofficial flagship. In some cases, it shares this unofficial status with the University of California, Los Angeles See more

The Berkeley campus encompasses approximately 1,232 acres (499 ha), though the "central campus" occupies only the low-lying western 178 acres (72 ha) of this area. Of the remaining acres, approximately 200 acres (81 ha) are occupied by the … See more

Berkeley alumni, faculty and staff have distinguished themselves in a wide range of endeavors and include 114 Nobel laureates (35 alumni), 25 Turing Award winners (11 alumni), 14 Fields Medalists, 30 Wolf Prize winners, 108 MacArthur Fellows (65 … See more