placing the university's banner in the Hall of the Heroes. In 2019, the university awards, for the first time in its modern history, a doctoral degree based on a thesis written and defended entirely in Quechua, thus marking a historic milestone for the development of research in Native American languages in the country and the region. About the importance of the University of San Marcos in the history of Peru and America, the Liberator Simón Bolívar said the day he received the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa: About the importance of the University of San Marcos as the oldest Pan American university institution, Albert Einstein expressed when receiving the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa in the framework of the 400th anniversary of the university commemorated in 1951: About the importance of the University of San Marcos, Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize for Literature 2010, said the day he was decorated by his alma mater: The first and oldest university in America The National University of San Marcos, founded on May 12, 1551, is the oldest university in the Americas, being the university that has been in continuous operation for the longest time since its foundation, and the only one of the American universities founded during the 16th century. to remain in operation without permanent closure from then to the present. The continuous operation is relevant when observing the cases of several universities founded in the colonial era that were finally closed during the Spanish-American wars of independence or due to internal conflicts. Due to its age and continuity, and on the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of its foundation, in 1951 a ceremony was held that brought together the rectors of the main Ibero-American universities, who decided to give it the title and recognition of "Dean of the Americas". Regarding the primacy of a university in America, there are two universities that can receive this distinction: The National University of San Marcos, which was the first university founded by Royal Provision and authorized by Royal Decree in America, on May 12, 1551. This implies that it was the first university officially and solemnly constituted by the Spanish Crown in America, that is, fulfilling all the royal and canonical formalities required at the time. The General Archive of the Indies, which has documents from the Spanish colonial period between the 16th and 18th centuries, does not contain official documents prior