USC/Clemson milestones

Longtime Clemson football fans will never forget their team’s national title in 1981. University of South Carolina fans are still basking in this season’s victory over then-No. 1 ranked Alabama on the way to the football team’s first SEC East title. Still, both schools have enjoyed many other milestones, off the field.

Milestones: The events that made history

Provided by USC and Clemson media relations departments:

USC

1801: South Carolina College is chartered.

1874: T. McCants Stewart becomes the first African-American graduate of the University of South Carolina.

1894: South Carolina begins accepting women. Mattie Jean Adams becomes the first female graduate in 1898.

1987: Pope John Paul II visits the Horseshoe on the USC campus.

2001: The University of South Carolina celebrates its bicentennial.

CLEMSON

1889: Clemson Agricultural College is founded as an all-male military school on land given as a gift to the state by Thomas Green Clemson University

1893: Clemson College is formally opened with an enrollment of 446.

1955: Clemson begins accepting women and changes to a “civilian” school. Margaret Marie Snider is the first woman to receive a degree.

1963: Clemson is peacefully integrated, enrolling Harvey Gantt as its first African-American student.

1964: Clemson College becomes Clemson University.

by: Bertram Rantin