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The Large Hadron Collider
21 March 1984<br>A Large Hadron Collider in the LEP Tunnel?
CERN and the European Committee for Future…
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30 January 1987<br>US president announces support for Superconducting Super Collider
With US President Ronald Reagan’s support,…
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01 October 1992<br>ATLAS and CMS collaborations publish letters of intent
The Toroidal LHC Apparatus collaboration propose…
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01 March 1993<br>ALICE collaboration publishes letter of intent
The collaboration for A Large Ion Collider…
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21 October 1993<br>Superconducting Super Collider project cancelled
Due to concerns linked to rising costs, the US…
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14 April 1994<br>10-metre magnet prototype achieves 8.73 Tesla
The first prototype bending-magnet for the LHC…
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16 December 1994<br>LHC construction approved
The CERN council approves the construction of the…
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23 June 1995<br>Japan admitted as CERN observer state
The CERN Council admits Japan as an observer…
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20 October 1995<br>LHC Conceptual Design Report published
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project is…
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31 January 1997<br>CMS and ATLAS experiments approved
Four years after the first technical proposals,…
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14 February 1997<br>ALICE experiment approved
The CERN research board officially approves…
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15 August 1997<br>TOTEM collaboration publishes letter of intent
The Total Cross Section, Elastic Scattering…
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19 December 1997<br>United States admitted as CERN observer state
At the December session of the CERN council,…
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15 February 1998<br>MoEDAL collaboration publishes letter of intent
The Monopole and Exotics Detector at the LHC…
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10 July 1998<br>Gallo-Roman ruins discovered at CMS dig site
As construction workers are preparing the work…
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17 September 1998<br>LHCb experiment approved
LHCb is the fourth experiment approved for the…
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31 May 2002<br>Final excavation of the ATLAS cavern
A digger removes the final sods of earth from the…
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05 July 2002<br>Reinforcing the ATLAS cavern floor
Construction workers use a modified cement truck…
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04 June 2003<br>ATLAS cavern inaugurated
After three years of work, the ATLAS detector…
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05 November 2003<br>LHCf submits letter of intent
The LHC forward collaboration proposes to build…
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01 February 2005<br>CMS cavern inaugurated
After six and a half years of work, CERN leaders…
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26 April 2007<br>Last LHC dipole magnet goes underground
The last superconducting magnet is lowered down…
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29 February 2008<br>Final large detector piece lowered into ATLAS cavern
A component known as a small wheel is the last…
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23 July 2008<br>Final large detector piece lowered into CMS cavern
The pixel detector barrel is the last large piece…
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10 September 2008<br>The LHC starts up
At 10.28am on 10 September 2008 a beam of protons…
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19 September 2008<br>Incident at the LHC
On 19 September 2008, during powering tests of…
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21 October 2008<br>Inauguration of the LHC
In line with Japanese tradition, this Daruma doll…
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30 April 2009<br>Final magnet goes underground after LHC repair
The 53rd and final replacement magnet for the…
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20 November 2009<br>Beams back in the LHC
From a CERN press release, dated 20 November 2009…
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16 December 2009<br>The LHC is put into standby mode
On 16 December 2009, the LHC ends its first full…
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28 February 2010<br>The LHC starts again after a short technical stop
After a short technical stop, beams circulate…
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30 March 2010<br>First LHC collisions at 7 TeV
ATLAS records collisions at 7 TeV centre-of-mass…
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18 October 2011<br>LHC proton run for 2011 reaches successful conclusion
On 18 October 2011, the grand total of data…
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13 December 2011<br>Tantalising hints of the Higgs
In a seminar today the ATLAS and CMS experiments…
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05 April 2012<br>Record collision energy of 8TeV
(image: event recorded with the CMS detector in…
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04 July 2012<br>ATLAS and CMS observe a particle consistent with the Higgs boson
On 4 July 2012, as a curtain raiser to the year…
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16 February 2013<br>End of LHC Run 1: First shutdown begins
On Saturday 16 February at 8.25am the shift crew…
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08 October 2013<br>François Englert and Peter W. Higgs awarded 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics
François Englert (left) and Peter Higgs at CERN…
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12 December 2014<br>CERN’s Large Hadron Collider gears up for run 2
Run 2 of the LHC follows a 2-year technical stop…
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13 May 2015<br>CMS and LHCb experiments reveal decay of the B0s particle into two muon particles
Published in Nature, the CMS and LHCb…
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03 June 2015<br>LHC experiments back in business at record energy of 13 TeV
From an update on the CERN website:
The…
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Magnetic monopoles...