University of California, Los Angeles

UCLA traces its origins to March 1881, when the California State Legislature authorized the creation of a southern branch of the California State Normal School in Los Angeles to train teachers for the region's growing population. The "Los Angeles branch of the California State Normal School" opened on August 29, 1882, in downtown Los Angeles. In 1914, the school, by then known as the Los Angeles State Normal School, relocated to a new campus on Vermont Avenue in East Hollywood.

In 1917, UC Regent Edward Augustus Dickson and Ernest Carroll Moore, the Normal School's director, began advocating for the school to become the second campus of the University of California. Their efforts succeeded on May 23, 1919, when Governor William D. Stephens signed legislation that acquired the land and buildings and transformed the Los Angeles Normal School into the "Southern Branch of the University of California". The same act added a general undergraduate program, the Junior College, which later became the College of Letters and Science in 1923. The Southern Branch's first classes were held on September 15, 1919, with 1,213 women and 207 men enrolled.

By the mid-1920s, enrollment growth necessitated a new campus. On May 21, 1925, the UC Regents selected a site in Westwood, and construction began in 1927. The new Westwood campus, featuring four original buildings in Italian Romanesque style—Royce Hall, Powell Library, the Physics-Biology Building (now Kaplan Hall), and the Chemistry Building (now Haines Hall)—opened to students in 1929 with 5,500 students. The Southern Branch was officially renamed the "University of California at Los Angeles" in 1927. UCLA was first permitted to award master's degrees in 1933 and doctorates in 1936, often against resistance from UC Berkeley. Helen Cecilia Bender received the first master's degree in 1934, and Kenneth P. Bailey was awarded the first Ph.D. in history in 1938.

In 1951, UCLA was formally elevated to coequal status with UC Berkeley, with both institutions headed by chancellors reporting directly to the UC president. Reflecting this new stature, the word "at" in its name was officially replaced with a comma in November 1958, becoming the "University of California, Los Angeles". The appointment of Franklin David Murphy as chancellor in 1960 spurred an era of tremendous growth in facilities and faculty honors, solidifying UCLA's position as a premier research university. Over its history, UCLA has been home to numerous Nobel laureates, including Ralph Bunche (Nobel Peace Prize, 1950) and professors in chemistry, physics, economics, and physiology or medicine. The university continues to evolve, having opened an international campus in Songdo, South Korea, in 2012 and, in 2025, welcoming Julio Frenk as its seventh chancellor.