Our History

Explore the timeline to discover key milestones and achievements in the journey of CERN.

• 1952

  
  

  Early beginnings.

• 1957

  
  

  CERN's first accelerator begins operations.

• 1959

  
  

  CERN's first big particle accelerator starts up.

• 1965

  
  

  The Laboratory crosses the border.

• 1971

  
  

  First-ever proton-proton collisions.

• 1976

  
  

  CERN's 7-kilometre accelerator is switched on.

• 1983

  
  

  Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the W and Z bosons.

• 1989

  
  

  The largest instrument ever built for research begins operation.

• 1993

  
  

  First results on direct change-parity symmetry breaking are published.

• 1994

  
  

  The Large Hadron Collider gets the green light.

• 1995

  
  

  First-ever anti-atoms produced at CERN.

• 2000

  
  

  The legacy of CERN's first big precision machine.

• 2008

  
  

  The Large Hadron Collider starts up.

• 2010

  
  

  The LHC delivers its first physics collisions.

• 2012

  
  

  ATLAS and CMS discover a particle consistent with the Higgs bosun.

• 2013

  
  

  Nobel Prize in Physics for the prediction of the Higgs field.

• 2015

  
  

  First observation of pentaquarks at the LHC.