Short answers, pulled from the story.
UC Santa Barbara traces its roots to 1891, when the Anna Blake School was founded as an independent teachers college offering training in home economics and industrial arts. It joined the University of California system in 1944 after intense lobbying led by Thomas Storke and Pearl Chase.
UC Santa Barbara alumni, faculty, and researchers have included 11 Nobel Prize laureates. Among them is Carol Greider, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 and earned her B.A. in biology from UCSB's College of Creative Studies in 1983.
In 1969, a bombing at the faculty club killed caretaker Dover Sharp during a period of intense anti-Vietnam War activism. In the spring of 1970, the Bank of America branch in nearby Isla Vista was burned during protests, and student Kevin Moran was killed by police. Governor Ronald Reagan ordered the National Guard to enforce a curfew on campus.
UCSB alumni include Academy Award winner Michael Douglas, who earned a B.A. in drama in 1968, oceanographer Robert Ballard who discovered the Titanic, Nobel laureate Carol Greider, and Olympic swimmer Jason Lezak. Musicians Robby Krieger of The Doors and Jack Johnson also attended UCSB.
According to the National Science Foundation, UC Santa Barbara spent $305.48 million on research and development in fiscal year 2023, ranking it 105th in the nation. The university hosts 12 national research centers and institutes, including the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.
The regents originally acquired 100 acres of largely unusable land on a seaside mesa in Santa Barbara. A 400-acre portion of the former Marine Corps Air Station Santa Barbara in Goleta became available at no cost from the federal government after 1946, and that site became the campus in 1949. Although UCSB has a Santa Barbara mailing address, the campus itself is not part of the city.