Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer in 1861 proposed to the Croatian Parliament the founding of a university at Zagreb. During his visit in 1869, the Emperor Franz Joseph signed the decree on the establishment of the University of Zagreb. Five years later, the Parliament passed the Act of Founding, which was ratified by the Emperor on 5 January 1874. On 19 October 1874, a ceremony was held in the name of the founding of the "Royal University of Franz Joseph I in Zagreb", making it the third university in the Hungarian realm of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.