[4] Its royal charter outlined its mission as "the general education of youth in which the various branches of Literature and Science are intended to be taught, and also the doctrines and duties of Christianity [...] inculcated by the United Church of England and Ireland.

"[5] The College counted among its founders and benefactors the Duke of Wellington, who was Prime Minister at the time, and a number of other eminent politicians and theologians of the British Establishment.

George Charles Winter Warr, Professor of Classical Literature from 1879 to 1901, developed an adaptation of the Iliad and the Odyssey entitled The Tale of Troy.

The goal was to raise sufficient funds to secure premises in Kensington for the newly founded King's College Lectures for Ladies.

[11][12][13][14][15] Although originally planned on a modest scale, the end product was a lavish spectacle staged in the South Kensington mansion of Sir Charles and Lady Freake.

This expanded version was moved to Prince's Hall in Piccadilly and included the story of Orestes, adapted from Aeschylus's Oresteian Trilogy.

[11][13][14][16] The Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature was established at King's College in 1918 to serve as the focal point in Britain for Hellenic studies beyond antiquity.

[17] It was championed by the likes of the Anglo-Hellenic League and by Eleftherios Venizelos, then Prime Minister of the Hellenic Parliament and a close friend of King's College Principal Ronald Montagu Burrows.

[24] The Parthenon sculptures were hidden directly underneath the department in the tunnels of the now-disused Strand station during the Second World War.

[29] A public dispute arose in 2010 over plans to axe the last Chair of Paleography in the United Kingdom and wider English speaking world.

[32] The British parliamentarian Boris Johnson visited the College in 2011 as Mayor of London to deliver a speech on the importance of classical education.

[27][37] The King's College London Rifle & Pistol Club (KCLRPC) has occupied the Strand underground tunnels beneath the department as their shooting range since the 1920s.

Travel destinations have so far included Athens and Rome, with future trips to sites in Cyprus, Sicily, North Africa and Turkey proposed.