Featured series 
Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
- April 4, 1945 At the Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, Calif., the Radcliffe Club of San Francisco performs launching honors for the S.S. Radcliffe Victory, one of several wartime Victory ships named after prominent U.S. colleges and universities. Radcliffe students raise money for the ship’s library.
- April 1947 Shortly after Easter, a group of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews meets in Phillips Brooks House to form an interfaith organization: the Harvard Religious Council. The announced purpose is “to promote justice, harmony, and understanding among the various religious faiths at the College.” Startup support comes from the National Council of Christians and Jews.
- April 23, 1949 For the eighth consecutive time, the Harvard Varsity Crew wins the Compton Cup Race on the Charles, outrowing teams from Princeton, MIT, and Rutgers. “All of the races were rowed under miserable conditions-wind, rough water, rain, and, in the varsity race, semi-darkness,” notes Athletics Director William J. Bingham ’16.
- April 12, 1950 Dynamite explodes on a windowsill outside Thayer Hall. Beyond broken glass, there is no damage, and the dynamiter escapes with anonymity intact.
- April 17, 1953 West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer visits Harvard.
- April 1954 Inspired by the success of a 1953 loan exhibition of French drawings, the Fogg Museum presents the largest public showing of 16th- and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish watercolors, prints, and drawings ever mounted in the U.S. Included are 67 choice works from the Collection de Grez held by Belgium’s Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, and 152 works from the Fogg (including 61 Rembrandt etchings) and local collections.– From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower
