1895 On April 21, 1895, the Penn Relay Carnival began and from its inception allowed African-Americans to participate in integrated events. It was the first major meet or organization to accept African-American entries.

1903 Track and field standout John Baxter Taylor entered the University of Pennsylvania. He was the first African-American to be selected to represent the United States internationally in any sport at the 1908 Olympics in London, where he was a member of the gold-medal winning 1,600-meter sprint medley relay. Taylor helped the Quakers to the 1907 intercollegiate championship title with his performance in the 440-yard run, when he set a new meet standard of 48 4/5. He repeated as the IC4A victor in 1908 and captured a gold medal at the 1908 Olympic Games as a member of the 1,600-meter sprint medley team that finished the race in a time of 3:29.4.

1916 Willis Nelson Cummings became the first African-American to run cross-country at Penn. Before his career was over, he would become the third black to gain a varsity letter, the first black to captain any varsity team at Penn as well as in the Ivy League. Cummings was the first runner ever to win both the senior and junior Middle Atlantic Association (AAU) championships in the same year. Cummings was born in Galveston, Texas, the son of William N. Cummings, a teacher and graduate of Fisk University. Cummings' mother was the first black woman to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree at Atlanta University, an accomplishment she achieved in 1886. Willis followed his parents' examples, earning a Bachelors degree at Fisk in 1916 and graduating sixth in his class of 259 students from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dentistry in 1919. Dr. Cummings practiced denistry in New York City.

1923 Doug Sheffey was the top pitcher in the Penn Quaker rotation, with enough ability to play in the majors. But instead he wound up playing Negro League ball for the Hilldale Club in Darby, Pa. Sheffey, who had attended Southern High in Philadelphia, graduated from the dental school in 1923 before becoming a pro.

1951 Eddie Bell was picked as a football All-American two years in-a-row and subsequently became the first NFL player from an Ivy League school since the legendary Fritz Pollard of Brown. Bell was a cornerback for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1955 to 1958 before becoming linebacker with the New York Titans (later the Jets) in 1960.

1958 At a time when the world record in the pole vault was well below 16 feet, Penn's John Gray, a graduate of Philadelphia's Overbrook High School, was a world-class vaulter. He had won the Heps championship as both a sophomore and junior, but saved his best for 1958, when he cleared a meet record 14-4 1/2. In the near half-century since, only one Ivy Leaguer has claimed the Heps vault title three times.

1963 Basketball standout John Edgar Wideman, an All-Ivy honoree and All-Big 5 selection in 1963, became the second-ever African-American to receive a Rhodes Scholarship and the first to do so in more than a half-century, following Harvard's Alain Locke (1907). Wideman graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1963. He was named to the Big 5 Hall of Fame in 1974. He was the first author to twice receive the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, for the novels Sent for You Yesterday (1984) and Philadelphia Fire (1991). His latest book is titled Hoop Roots (2001).

1972 Bruce Collins became the first African-American at Penn to earn a significant league-wide honor, becoming the Athlete of the Meet at the Heptagonal Indoor Championship.

1973 When Brown lined up against Penn at Franklin Field on Oct. 6, something that had never happened in the more than 100 years of major-college football took place. It was the first matchup ever between two starting black quarterbacks as Penn's Marty Vaughn and Brown's Dennis Coleman took to the field. Vaughn struck first with a touchdown scamper, but Coleman led his Bears to 20 unanswered points. It was then Vaughn's turn to get hot, connecting on one touchdown pass and leading the Quakers to another to take a 21-20 halftime lead. Penn scored the only touchdown of the second half to go onto a 28-20 victory in the historic game before 10,991 fans. Vaughn threw for 200 yards while Coleman ran for more than 10 yards a carry as the two went down together in history.

1974 Track star Denis Fikes ran the mile in a time of 3:55.0, the fastest time by an African-American at the time. His record stood for a decade. Now know as D. Elton Cochran-Fikes, he is the Coordinator of Compliance at Penn.

1975 Ron Haigler became the first African-American to be named the Ivy League men's basketball Player of the Year.

1976 While a law student at the University of Pennsylvania, native Philadelphian Anita DeFrantz won a bronze medal in rowing (eight-oared shell) at the Montreal Olympics. After admittance to the Pennsylvania bar in 1977, she emerged as a leading figure in opposition to the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow. The boycott was order by President Jimmy Carter after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in January of 1980. DeFrantz was the named plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit, which was turned down by a federal judge. But the episode stoked her desire to be involved in the Olympic movement in the name of athletes. In 1986 she became the first woman to represent the U.S. on the International Olympic Committee and then became the IOC's first female vice president in 1997. For the record, DeFrantz was not an Ivy League athlete, she graduated from Connecticut College in 1974.

1979 Charles Harris became the first African-American athletic director for an Ivy institution. He served in this role at Penn until 1985.

1980 Tracey Vause became the first African-American female to be named first-team All-Ivy when she was selected by the Ivy lacrosse coaches for that honor. She repeated it in 1981.

1987 Perry Bromwell was named the Ivy League Player of the Year in men's basketball after averaging nearly 22 points a game and leading the Quakers to the Ivy title. Bromwell was a sixth-round selection of the New Jersey Nets in the NBA Draft.

1989 Bryan Keys broke the career rushing record with 3,137 career rushing yards.

1991 Doug Glanville was selected 12th in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft by the Chicago Cubs after a first-team Academic All-America season for the Quakers. In 2003, Glanville hit a game-winning triple in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series as his Cubs finish just five outs from advancing to the World Series. Glanville would have been the first African-American Ivy Leaguer to appear in the Series. Glanville is currently a member of the Philadelphia Phillies.

1995 Jerome Allen was taken by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the NBA Draft, the only Ivy Leaguer to be selected since the NBA Draft was scaled back to just two rounds. Prior to Allen's 1991 arrival at Penn, the Quakers had gone five straight seasons without a winning record. In his four years, Penn averaged more than 21 wins a year and won 51 of 56 Ivy League games.

1999 The Ivy League celebrated its 25th year of women's championships during the 1998-99 academic year. In honor of the many women who have excelled in their sport, the League announced its Silver Anniversary Honor Roll. Twelve African-American women were named to the list. Auretha Fleming '84, a standout baskeball player and track and field stars Frances Childs '88 and Christelle Williams '89 were honored.

2002 Junior forward Ugonna Onyekwe was named the Player of the Year in the greatest season of Ivy men's basketball ever. For the first time ever, the League sent three teams to postseason tournaments following an unprecedented three-way playoff for the NCAA berth. Two other African-Americans joined Onyekwe on the Ivy first-team, his junior teammate Koko Archibong and Brown junior Earl Hunt ••• Senior Tuan Wreh, who was a double winner in the long and triple jumpsat the Outdoor Heps Championships in Annapolis, Md. His triple jump victory was his sixth straight Heps triple title and broke a 25-year-old Heps record as he covered 53-foot-5.

2003 Sports Illustrated named its 101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports and two of the selections had Penn backgrounds, former Penn hoopster Craig Littlepage of UVa, and Anita DeFrantz of the International Olympic Committee.

2004 After leading Penn Quakers to the Ivy crown and an NCAA Tournament berth, senior Jewel Clark, of Waldorf, Md., was named as the Ivy League Player of the Year. Clark, three times chosen unanimously All-Ivy, had nearly averaged a double double (19.9 points, 9.1 boards) and finished her career with 1,727 points.

2005 Junior Courtney Jaworski, of University Place, Wash., and sophomore Grafton Ifill, of Nassau, Bahamas, were the indoor and outdoor Heps athletes of the meet. Jaworski, who broke the indoor meet record in the 800m with a time of 1:50.29, would go on to earn All-America honors in the 800 during the outdoor season. Ifill was the only double winner in the individual events outdoor, claiming the 100- and 200-meter dashes, setting meet top 10s in both events. • • • Soccer player Richard Brushett, a senior forward and a Chemical/Biomechanical Engineering major from Silver Spring, Md., was named 2005 Academic first-team All-District, making him just one of three Ivy soccer players — men and women — to achieve that distinction. It was the second such honor for Brushett, who was also named first-team All-District in 2003.