In 1917, the University Extension Southern Branch opened in Los Angeles, offering almost 100 classes in seven locations and enrolling more than 1,600 students.
Today UCLA Extension offers some 4,500 courses each year to more than 60,000 students.
In 1928, UCLA Extension offered the latest thing in distance learning: "commuters' school" on Pacific Electric streetcars let passengers study while they rode Los Angeles' Big Red Cars.
During World War I, UCLA Extension taught French to nurses and others headed overseas. Today our American Language Center, one of the nation's premier university extension programs for international students of English, attracts students from around the world.
In 1959, UCLA Extension founded the Theater Group, a campus-based experimental theater company that has evolved into the Los Angeles Center Theater Group at the Mark Taper Forum.
In 1966, UCLA Extension established the Writers' Program - today the nation's largest and most comprehensive continuing education writing program, with some 450 courses offered annually.
Many of UCLA Extension's courses offer credits transferable toward undergraduate or graduate degrees.
Charles Mills Gayley (for whom Westwood's thoroughfare is named) helped establish the Extension Division of the University of California in 1891, with Gayley offering its first course on Shakespeare's tragedies.
By 1919, UC Extension Los Angeles, as UCLA Extension was then known, offered 97 classes to 1,684 students.
Extension's 1921 courses "The Gas Engine" and "How a Plane Flies" reflected the technological advancements of the times.
During World War II, UCLA Extension offered courses for aircraft production employees and medical personnel.
In 1955, Extension inaugurated a Technical Management Program to help engineers become managers in a new era.
More than 35,000 students from all 50 states and 80 countries have studies with Extension online since 1996.