Yale University

Yale University, U.S. university chartered in 1701 as the Collegiate School, first at Killingworth, Milford, and Saybrook, Conn., then (1716) at New Haven, Conn., its present site. Renamed Yale College in 1718 in honor of Elihu Yale (1649–1721), it expanded greatly in the 19th century, awarded the first Ph.D. in the United States in 1861, and was renamed Yale University in 1887.