Timeline of Cambridge

Prior to 16th century

• 973 – Market active
• –50 – St Bene't's Church built
• 1068 – Cambridge Castle erected
• 1101 – Town incorporated
• – Holy Sepulchre church built
• 1144 – Cambridge is sacked by Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex
• 1154 – Cambridge fair active
• 1200 – Charter granted
• 1209 – University of Cambridge established by scholars from Oxford
• 1211 – Stourbridge fair first recorded
• 1213 – Hervey FitzEustace, first recorded mayor
• c. 1215 – Richard of Wetheringsett, first Chancellor of the University of Cambridge
• 1231 – The University is recognised by a writ of authority over its townspeople from Henry III
• 1233 – A letter from Pope Gregory IX grants privileges to the University's scholars
• 1261 – Cambridge academics attempt to set up a university of Northampton, suppressed by the Crown in 1265
• 1266 – Raided by Barons who had been disinherited after the Battle of Evesham, and the murder of the Jews in the town
• 1275 – Expulsion of the town's Jews by Queen Dowager Eleanor of Provence
• 1284 – University's Peterhouse college founded
• 1326 – Clare College founded
• 1347 – Pembroke College founded
• 1348 – Gonville and Caius College founded
• 1350 – Trinity Hall college founded
• 1352 – Corpus Christi College founded
• 1381 – Disorder during the Peasants' Revolt
• 1416 – University Library exists by this date
• 1441 – King's College founded
• 1446 – Foundation stone of King's College Chapel laid
• 1448 – Queens' College founded
• 1473 – St. Catherine College founded
• 1496 – Jesus College founded

  16th-18th centuries

• 1505 – Christ's College founded
• 1511 – St John's College established
• 1515 – King's College Chapel fan vault completed
• 1521 – John Siberch is active as a printer, the earliest known here
• 1525 – Robert Barnes gives probably the first openly evangelical sermon in an English church, at St Edward King and Martyr
• 1534 – University Press granted a royal charter
• 1542 – Magdalene College founded
• 1546 – Trinity College founded
• 1556 – John Hullier burned as a Protestant on Jesus Green
• 1584 – Emmanuel College founded
• 1595 – Sidney Sussex College founded
• 1614 – Hobson's Conduit completed
• 1615 – Perse School founded
• 1638 – Cambridge, Massachusetts named
• 1640
• * Clare College Bridge completed
• * Oliver Cromwell elected Member of Parliament for Cambridge
• 1643 – Some bridges pulled down by Cromwell's forces
• 1667 – Eagle and Child pub in business
• 1695 – Wren Library at Trinity College completed
• 1730 – University's Senate House completed
• 1744 – Cambridge Journal and Weekly Flying Post begins publication
• 1747 – Shire-hall built
• 1749 – Mathematical Bridge first built at Queens' College
• 1762 – Cambridge Chronicle newspaper begins publication
• 1766 – Addenbrooke's Hospital founded
• 1784 – Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge established
• 1793
• * Cambridge Intelligencer newspaper begins publication
• * Cambridge Quarters composed for new clock of the Church of St Mary the Great

  19th century

• 1800 – Downing College founded
• 1815 – Cambridge Union founded as a student debating society
• 1816 – Fitzwilliam Museum founded
• 1817 – Cambridge Town Club formed
• 1828
• * Bull Hotel in business
• * Cambridge University Boat Club founded
• 1829 – The Boat Race, rowed against Oxford, begins
• 1831 – Bridge of Sighs built over the Cam at St John's College
• 1833 – The Pitt Building built in honour of William Pitt the Younger, an undergraduate of Pembroke College and Prime Minister, to house the printing and publishing offices of Cambridge University Press
• 1833 – Anatomy theatre attacked by a mob
• 1839 – Cambridge Advertiser newspaper begins publication
• 1840 – Cambridge Antiquarian Society founded
• 1841 – Cambridge's first post-reformation Roman Catholic church opens as St Andrew's Church
• 1845 – Eastern Counties Railway begins operating to Cambridge railway station
• 1848 – Mill Road Cemetery established
• 1853 – Cambridge Water Company authorised by Cambridge University and Town Waterworks Act
• 1854 – Deighton, Bell & Co. booksellers in business
• 1855–6 – Following provision of a piped water supply, the Hobson's Conduit fountain from the market place is moved to form a memorial
• 1858 – Cambridge School of Art founded
• 1869 – Girton College for women founded
• 1871
• * Newnham College for women founded
• * Universities Tests Act removes restrictions which have previously limited access to the ancient universities to members of the Church of England
• 1874 – Cavendish Laboratory completed
• 1876 – W. Heffer bookseller begins business as a stationer
• 1880
• * Cambridge Street Tramways begin operation
• * St Radegund pub built on part of the site of the Garrick Hotel
• 1881 – Ridley Hall and Westcott House theological colleges founded
• 1883 – Footlights student amateur dramatic club founded
• 1884 – Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology founded
• 1888 – Cambridge Daily News begins publication
• 1890
• * Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church consecrated
• * Victoria Bridge opened to improve access to the city from Chesterton
• 1894 – Homerton College, a Congregationalist teacher training college, moves to Cambridge
• 1895 – Roman Catholics are permitted by their hierarchy to attend the ancient universities
• 1896
• * St Edmund's House is established primarily as a hall of residence for Catholic students, utilising the former premises of Ayerst Hostel
• * Pye Ltd established as scientific instrument makers by W. G. Pye
• 1897 – Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria
• 1899 – Westminster College, a Presbyterian theological college, moves to Cambridge

  20th century

• 1901 – Population: 38,379
• 1908 – Cambridge Town F.C. formed
• 1912
• * Cambridge United F.C. established as Abbey United
• * University's Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences opens
• 1914 – Cambridge Street Tramways cease operation
• 1918 – First Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols held at King's College
• c 1921 – Fitzbillies bakery opened by Ernest and Arthur Mason in Trumpington Street
• 1922 – War Memorial unveiled
• 1923 – Jesus Green Swimming Pool opens
• 1926 – Fen Causeway officially opened
• 1928 – Cambridge Preservation Society founded
• 1934 – New University Library completed
• 1938 – Cambridge Airport opens
• 1939 – London educational institutions evacuated to Cambridge: Queen Mary College to King's College ; London Hospital Medical College and The Bartlett to St Catharine's College; SOAS to Christ's College; London School of Economics to Peterhouse ; Bedford College to Newnham College ; and Barts to Queens' College
• 1948 – First women admitted to study for full academic degrees in the University but have no associated privileges
• 1949
• * University's Cambridge Bibliographical Society founded
• * University of Cambridge's Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator begins operating
• 1951 – City charter granted
• 1953 – Francis Crick and James D. Watson from the Cavendish Laboratory enter The Eagle, Cambridge, for a pub lunch announcing "We have discovered the secret of life"
• 1954 – Murray Edwards College for women founded as New Hall
• 1956 – Kettle's Yard established by Jim Ede
• 1957 – Twinned with Heidelberg
• 1958 – Churchill College established
• 1958–9 – Silver Street Bridge built
• 1960
• * Garret Hostel Bridge built
• * Cambridge Consultants founded
• 1962 – Addenbrooke's Hospital begins to move from Trumpington Street to its south Cambridge site
• 1964
• * Darwin College for graduates founded
• * Cambridge Folk Festival begins
• 1965
• * Lucy Cavendish College for mature women founded
• * Wolfson College for mature students founded as University College
• 1966
• * Clare Hall for graduates established
• * Fitzwilliam College chartered as a college
• 1970
• * February: Garden House riot
• * Heffer's open a flagship bookshop in Trinity Street
• 1971 – Elizabeth Way Bridge opened
• 1972
• * Three previously all-male colleges of the University admit women undergraduates
• * Cambridge Theological Federation formed
• 1974
• *First Strawberry Fair held
• *First Cambridge Beer Festival held
• 1975 – University's Cambridge Science Park founded
• 1976
• * Sancton Wood School founded
• * First Andy's Records store opened in Mill Road
• 1977 – Robinson College founded
• 1984 – Addenbrooke's Hospital treats its last patient at its Trumpington Street site
• 1986 – St Edmund's House is renamed St Edmund's College
• 1989 – Cambridge Fun Run begins
• 1990
• * Royal Greenwich Observatory relocated to Cambridge from Herstmonceux Castle
• * ARM Holdings established as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd
• 1992 – Anglia Ruskin University is established as a public university
• 1998
• * Abcam established
• * St Edmund's College is granted a royal charter confirming its full collegiate status

  21st century

• 2003 – University's Centre for Mathematical Sciences completed in West Cambridge
• 2006
• * Local Plan 2006 adopted
• * Cambridge International School established
• 2007 – The Centre for Computing History is established
• 2008
• * New Hall renamed Murray Edwards College
• * Riverside Bridge opens
• 2009 – Anne Jarvis becomes first woman University Librarian of the University of Cambridge
• 2010 – Homerton College chartered as a full college of the University of Cambridge
• 2011 – Phase One of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway opens
• 2013 – North West Cambridge development planned
• 2016 – New global headquarters for AstraZeneca projected for completion on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus
• 2017 – Cambridge North railway station opens
• 2019
• * Sonita Alleyne becomes the first black woman elected as head of an Oxbridge college, Master of Jesus
• * The Royal Papworth Hospital relocates to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus