The Large Hadron Collider

The LHC is the largest machine in the world. It took thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians decades to plan and build, and it continues to operate at the very boundaries of scientific knowledge.

• 21 March 1984

  A Large Hadron Collider in the LEP Tunnel?

• 30 January 1987

  US president announces support for Superconducting Super Collider

• 8 February 1988

  LEP tunnel completed

• 1 October 1992

  ATLAS and CMS collaborations publish letters of intent

• 1 March 1993

  ALICE collaboration publishes letter of intent

• 21 October 1993

  Superconducting Super Collider project cancelled

• 14 April 1994

  10-metre magnet prototype achieves 8.73 Tesla

• 16 December 1994

  LHC construction approved

• 23 June 1995

  Japan admitted as CERN observer state

• 20 October 1995

  LHC Conceptual Design Report published

• 31 January 1997

  CMS and ATLAS experiments approved

• 14 February 1997

  ALICE experiment approved

• 15 August 1997

  TOTEM collaboration publishes letter of intent

• 19 December 1997

  United States admitted as CERN observer state

• 15 February 1998

  MoEDAL collaboration publishes letter of intent

• 10 July 1998

  Gallo-Roman ruins discovered at CMS dig site

• 17 September 1998

  LHCb experiment approved

• 31 May 2002

  Final excavation of the ATLAS cavern

• 5 July 2002

  Reinforcing the ATLAS cavern floor

• 4 June 2003

  ATLAS cavern inaugurated

• 5 November 2003

  LHCf submits letter of intent

• 1 February 2005

  CMS cavern inaugurated

• 26 April 2007

  Last LHC dipole magnet goes underground

• 29 February 2008

  Final large detector piece lowered into ATLAS cavern

• 23 July 2008

  Final large detector piece lowered into CMS cavern

• 10 September 2008

  The LHC starts up

• 19 September 2008

  Incident at the LHC

• 21 October 2008

  Inauguration of the LHC

• 30 April 2009

  Final magnet goes underground after LHC repair

• 20 November 2009

  Beams back in the LHC

• 16 December 2009

  The LHC is put into standby mode

• 28 February 2010

  The LHC starts again after a short technical stop

• 30 March 2010

  First LHC collisions at 7 TeV

• 18 October 2011

  LHC proton run for 2011 reaches successful conclusion

• 13 December 2011

  Tantalising hints of the Higgs

• 5 April 2012

  Record collision energy of 8TeV

• 4 July 2012

  ATLAS and CMS observe a particle consistent with the Higgs boson

• 16 February 2013

  End of LHC Run 1: First shutdown begins

• 8 October 2013

  François Englert and Peter W. Higgs awarded 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics

• 3 June 2015

  LHC experiments back in business at record energy of 13 TeV