Happy Birthday, Notre Dame!

On this day in 1842, the University of Notre Dame du Lac was founded near South Bend, Indiana, by a band of eight members of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, which was founded in France in 1837. Four of the founders were French and four were Irish-born. The leader of the community and the president of the university was Father Edward F. Sorin. For much of the nineteenth century, it was a middle, secondary, and trade school with a few college students. With the opening of St. Mary’s College College nearby, the entire complex functioned as an apostolic center for the Catholic Church in northern Indiana and southwestern Michigan throughout the 1850’s. After the Civil War, the university began to expand. Law studies began in 1869 and engineering (the first in a Catholic school in America) began in 1873. During the 1920’s the preparatory school closed and the university was organized into four distinct colleges. During World War II the university was a site for training naval officers. After the war, enrollment reached 5,000. Under the presidency of Father Theodore Hesburgh (1952-1987) Notre became one of the leading Catholic universities in the world and one of the best known.