Nov. 9: Purchase of Amos Smith Manor House from Mrs. George Gardner Hall of Boston by Dom Leonard Sargent to establish a monastery of the English Benedictine Congregation.
    


Nov. 11: Armistice Day. End of World War I.
June 25: Priory formally established under the sponsorship of Downside Abbey, England, and named after the patron of Downside, St. Gregory the Great.
    

March 21: Transfer of Priory from Downside to Fort Augustus Abbey in Scotland.

Sept. 26: Opening of School with 16 boys under Prior Wulstan Knowles and Headmaster Dom Hugh Diman, founder of Saint George’s Episcopal School. Tuition that year: $1,200.
    

Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd flies to North Pole and back.

Gertrude Caroline Ederle became first woman to swim the English channel

Charles Lindbergh flies The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic nonstop and solo, direct from New York City to Paris, completing the first solo transatlantic flight.
August 28: Ice Skating Rink completed east of playing fields and construction of Red Dormitory and Schoolhouse.
    

May 28: Amelia Earhart flies non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean.
June 1: Purchase of 50 acres for additional playing fields, fishing and pheasant hunting.

Sept.16: Enrollment: 71 boys. Due to the Depression, one-third of the student body is unable to pay the full tuition.

Nov. 5: Prior Wulstan Knowles elected Abbot of Fort Augustus and Dom Hugh Diman appointed Superior of Portsmouth Priory.
    

Plans started by architectural firm of Maginnis and Walsh Associates for permanent monastery and school. $110,000 given by Mr. Basil Harris for construction of St. Benet’s House.
    

June 2: First Prize Day. Diplomas awarded to Eugene Reid and Richard Tobin.

Opening of St. Benet's
    


Dr. Bateman from England appointed first lay Headmaster.
    

Nov. 8: Roosevelt elected President and begins the New Deal.
Sept. 16: Enrollment: 85 boys, 11 lay faculty, 3 monks.

July 5: Resignation of Dr. Bateman; Dom Hugh Diman resumes Headmastership.
    

Sept. 19: Miss Ade Bethune of Newport becomes first woman on faculty, taking over Art Department from John Benson.
    


Boxing and soccer introduced.
    


May 6: Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, N.J.
Sept. 18: Hurricane causes severe damage to grounds and loss of boats.

Dr. Brady named Assistant Headmaster.
    

Sept. 1: Germany attacks Poland, beginning World War II.

May 1: Opening of New York World's Fair as symbol of peace
Aug. 1: Dom Gregory Borgstedt is appointed Prior, succeeding Dom Hugh Diman as Superior of the monastery.

Nov. 5: Mock student presidential election: Wendell Wilkie easily defeats Franklin Roosevelt.
    

June 22: France falls.

June 22: Germany invades Russia.

Dec. 7: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, bringing United States into the war.
Jan. 5: Lawrence McGann, school treasurer, enlists as Naval pilot and chaplain. In a letter to Father Gregory he writes: “Christmas Day was strange out here in the tropical heat, without any mail from home and with a goodly crowd of homesick chaps. The average age of those Marines who took Guadalcanal was under 20 years. I celebrated Midnight Mass in a coconut grove; then after hearing hundreds of confessions, I said Mass again aboard the carrier....”

Aug. 7: Dom Hugh resigns as Headmaster; Dom Gregory Borgstedt is appointed to succeed him.

Acquisition of Anthony Farm which becomes an important source of food during the war and afterward.
    

February 4: Miss Charlton Fortune, founder of Monterey Guild, arrives as Artist-in-Residence.

June 21: First summer school opens with 28 students.
    

Oct. 15: Death of Dom Leonard Sargent, founder of monastery.
    

Feb. 15: Abbey of Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict and called “Cradle of Western Civilization,” destroyed by Allies.

May 6: D-Day - Allied invasion of Normandy.

April 12: Death of President Roosevelt.

May 7: Unconditional surrender of Germany.

Aug 9: Atomic bomb destroys Hiroshima causing & inaugurating the Atomic Age.

Aug 14: VJ Day, surrender of Japan, ending World War II.

Sept. 2: Official end of the war, when signing took place.
April 9: Benefit Concert of Gregorian Chant given by monks at The Cloisters Museum in New York for the Capital Fund Drive.
    


Jan. 30: Mahatma Gandhi assassinated.

May 14: State of Israel proclaimed.
March 17: Death of Dom Hugh Diman, founder of School.

Oct. 2: Lecture by Thornton Wilder on “The Craft of Writing.”

Nov. 21: Priory given independent status as a Conventual Priory with Dom Gregory Borgstedt appointed Superior.

March 22: Dormitories occupied during School vacation by Trappists from Cumberland, R.I., whose monastery was destroyed by fire.

Jan. 15: Dom Gregory resigns as Prior in order to help in founding a contemplative monastery in Elmira, N.Y.

August 8: The Abbot President, Herbert Byrne, appoints Dom Aelred Graham, a monk of Ampleforth Abbey, to be Prior.

Sept. 18: Opening of St. Bede’s House, a dormitory for 28 boys, using money donated by Mr. Siragusa, originally intended for a swimming pool.
    

August: Graduates Thomas Hubbard ‘48 and Thomas Price ‘47 reported killed in Korean Conflict.

Oct. 22: Mock student presidential vote: an Eisenhower landslide over Adlai Stevenson, 99 to 49

Dec. 8: Visit by Pietro Belluschi, Dean of Architectural School at M.I.T., to propose a new direction in architecture for future buildings.
    


Feb. 6: Queen Elizabeth II begins second-longest reign in British history.

June 2: New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay from Nepal successfully climb Mt. Everest.
April 10: Options on acreage adjacent to Priory land secured by Pan American Refining Corporation,