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The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Connecticut, founded Dartmouth College in 1769. He had earlier established Moor’s Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut, principally for the education of Native Americans. In seeking to expand his school into a college, Wheelock relocated his educational enterprise to Hanover, in the Royal Province of New Hampshire. Samson Occom, a Mohergan Indian and one of Wheelock’s first students, was instrumental in raising substantial funds for the College. The Royal Governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, provided the land upon which Dartmouth would be built and on December 13, 1769, conveyed the charter from King George III establishing the College. That charter created a college “for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land...and also of English Youth and any others.” Names for William Legge, the Second Earl of Dartmouth - an important supporter of Eleazar Wheelock’s efforts - Dartmouth is the nation’s ninth oldest college.

On September 30, 1978, Epsilon Chi Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma was installed at Dartmouth College. Kappa Kappa Gamma became the second sorority on the Dartmouth campus, colonizing in the spring of 1978. Sigma Kappa was the first national sorority to be established on the campus in the spring of 1977.

This decade saw the following: election of President Ronald Reagan; Sandra Day O’Connor selected as the first woman justice to the Supreme Court; first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off; Beirut barracks bombing occurred killing American and French servicemen; Lockerbie Disaster when terrorists blew up the plane over Scotland; Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine filled much of the world with radioactive debris; Challenger disaster left six astronauts and one woman school teacher dead; protestors at Tiananmen Square were crushed by the Peoples Liberation Army; fall of the Berlin Wall was the most momentous event of the decade; oil tanker Exxon Valdez caused one of the worst ecological disasters ever; War on Drugs accelerated; worldwide the beginning of the AIDS pandemic; and rejection of smoking based on health issues. Personal computers experienced massive growth.

The 1990s is often considered the true dawn of the Information Age. Info-age digital technologies became widely used by the general public. Highlights include: Gulf War with Iraq began in 1991, same year as the Soviet Union’s dissolution ended; funeral procession of Diana, Princess of Wales, was mourned worldwide; World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombings led to awareness of domestic and international terrorism as a real threat; Columbine High School massacre occurred; President William Clinton was a dominant political figure and scarred by the Lewinsky scandal; Youth culture embraced environmental issues. Record numbers of women were elected to high office in the US.

Globalization continued to influence the world. A prime contributor was the growth of the Internet. Wireless Internet became prominent and email became the standard form of communicating. Highlights included: George W. Bush was elected President; 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centers led the US War on Terrorism at home and abroad; U.S. was once again involved in war with Iraq and limited engagement began in Afghanistan; Mexican Drug War saw armed conflict between rival drug cartels which would eventually dominate the wholesale illicit drug market in the U.S.; Virginia Tech Massacre became the deadliest shooting on a school campus. Climate change and global warming became household words, and population growth skyrocketed. In 2008 Barack Obama became the first African American elected as U.S. President.

The economic crisis made it difficult for college graduates to find jobs; students graduating with accumulated debt found their future bleak; the war in Iraq officially ended.