1896 – Four Baltimore children begin their schooling on the third floor of Elizabeth and Isaac Dixon’s house at 823 Park Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland.

1899 – Virgil M. Hillyer, a Harvard-trained scholar, accepts the job of Head Master. On April 13, 1899, the school is legally incorporated as "Calvert Primary School of Baltimore City."

1905 – Head Master Hillyer suggests to Calvert School Board of Directors that a Baltimore bookstore owner sell the private school’s Kindergarten curriculum for use in families’ homes.

1906 – Calvert School becomes the first formal homeschool curriculum provider by sending lessons that mirror its Day School instruction to homes each Monday morning.

1907 – The distinctive Calvert silhouette head appears in advertisements. Calvert advertisements appear in 13 national magazines, including National Geographic, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and Harper’s.

1908 – The basement of the school’s Chase Street building is equipped for mimeographing lessons, which were sent to 35 states and eight foreign countries. Enrollment cost $50 a year.

1924 – The Day School building, still in use today, opens for 234 students on Oct. 1 in what was then known as the Baltimore suburbs.

1931 – Calvert’s visionary, Head Master Virgil Hillyer, dies at the age of 56 of an acute appendicitis.

1940s – U.S. Department of Defense begins using Calvert School curriculum in Army schools in Japan and Korea. In all, more than 4,000 students are using Calvert courses.

1948 – Post-war homeschool enrollment reaches 8,000 so Calvert opens a print shop to prepare courses.

1960s – Schools begin employing the Calvert program in their classrooms, building on the homeschool program’s success with a new audience.

1990s – Calvert expands use of its homeschool curriculum into schools. Within a few years, traditional schools, charter and virtual schools, and other institutions will use Calvert’s lessons.

1996 – Calvert School celebrates its centennial. More than 300,000 Day School and homeschool students have used the curriculum.

1998 – Calvert School’s Home Instruction Department is the first homeschool curriculum accredited by the Commission on International and Transregional Accreditation (CITA).

2001 – Calvert School completes its K-8 Math series, Calvert Math. The home instruction department is renamed Calvert Education Services and moves into new offices in Hunt Valley, Maryland. More than 50 employees now handle the preparation and shipping of courses.

2003 – Calvert opens its Middle School, a state-of-the-art facility, for Fifth through Eight Grade students, giving home instruction student courses an additional testing ground. Nearly 30,000 courses are being shipped to all 50 states and about 90 countries.

2004 – More than 150 schools are using the Calvert program in the U.S. and in Brazil, Cambodia, Korea, Mozambique, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Eleven students from a school in Taiwan using the Calvert program, make a two-week visit to Calvert School in Baltimore, staying with Calvert School students’ families in Baltimore and participating in visits to Washington, D.C., and a Baltimore Orioles baseball game, as well as and other cultural and educational experiences.

2005 – Preparations started for 100th anniversary in one year; new technology instruction, offering computer skills and application in lessons, launched for home instruction. Hillyer’s A Child’s History of Art series republished.

Sources: Calvert and Hillyer; Calvert School: The First Century; Calvert Education Services.