Santa Clara Santa Clara California United States

Mission Santa Clara de Asís is founded in what is now Santa Clara, California, on January 12, 1777.

The outpost is originally established as La Misión Santa Clara de Thamien (or Mission Santa Clara de Thamien, a reference to the Tamyen people) at the native village of So-co-is-u-ka (meaning "Laurelwood", located on the Guadalupe River) January 12, 1777.

Here the Franciscan brothers erect a cross and shelter for worship to bring Christianity to the Ohlone and Costanoan peoples.

Floods, fires, and earthquakes damage many of the early structures and force relocation to higher ground.

The second site is known as Mission Santa Clara de Asís.

This is the first California mission to be named in honor of a woman and the only one now located on a university campus.

Santa Clara College is chartered in Santa Clara, California, on April 28, 1851.

The Bishop of Monterey, Dominican Joseph Sadoc Alemany, had offered the site to Italian Jesuits John Nobili and Michael Accolti in 1851 on condition that they found a college for California's growing Catholic population when it becomes part of the United States following the Mexican–American War (1846–48).

The University of the Pacific is chartered as California Wesleyan College, in Santa Clara, California, on July 10, 1851.

One month later, it will petition to have its name changed to the University of the Pacific.

It is today the oldest chartered university in California, the first independent co-educational campus in California, and both the first conservatory of music and first medical school on the West Coast.