Date of establishment
Encyclopedia
The date of establishment or date of founding of an institution
Institution
An institution is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community...

 is the date
Calendar date
A date in a calendar is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified. The number of days between two dates may be calculated. For example, "24 " is ten days after "14 " in the Gregorian calendar. The date of a...

 on which that institution chooses to claim as its starting point. Often the criteria that define a date of establishment or founding are ill-defined—or more specifically, are ill-defined in general, although each institution tends to adopt a rather rigid definition
Definition
A definition is a passage that explains the meaning of a term , or a type of thing. The term to be defined is the definiendum. A term may have many different senses or meanings...

 of its own date of establishment.

Government establishment

A government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

 of a nation state may define its date of establishment by:
  • Declaration of independence from a now-foreign power, e.g. July 4, 1776 of the United States of America
  • Ratification of its constitution
    Constitution
    A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...

  • Signing of a treaty
    Treaty
    A treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms...

     ending a revolution
    Revolution
    A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...

    ary war
    War
    War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...


Yet still more definitions of establishment are possible in the case of each nation state's history and culture.

University establishment

Likewise, a university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 may define its date of establishment by:
  • The date at which the papers of its incorporation
    Incorporation (business)
    Incorporation is the forming of a new corporation . The corporation may be a business, a non-profit organisation, sports club, or a government of a new city or town...

     was approved
  • The date on which it first opened for the teaching of classes
  • If the university derived from a previously-established institution, either the reorganization or the establishment of the parent institution.

Yet still more variations on the definition of the date on which a university was established are possible as considered reasonable by each university's governing body or executive officers.

Institution establishment

Ultimately an established date of an institution either is decided upon as an internal matter by that institution or is decided for that institution by a normative higher authority outside that institution. For all institutions falling into a particular type of similar institutions, if the date of establishment is not decided by the same authority using the same criteria variations in the definition of the date of establishment can arise.
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