Campus & Community

This month in Harvard History

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  • Jan. 18, 1943 – At Radcliffe, Briggs Hall becomes home to 75 Waves (all commissioned officers) studying at the Navy Supply Corps School at the Business School. The women will become disbursing officers and assistants in Navy storehouses. Another 75 are due to arrive on April 1. 
  • Jan. 14, 1950 – The Federal Communications Commission orders WHRB-Radio off the air because radiation from the station’s coaxial cables – 20 times greater than the allowable limit – is interfering with a Boston station. Student engineers solve the problem by February, but customary Reading Period orgies go unheard. 
  • Jan. 12, 1963 – Mind-altering drugs surface as a contentious issue. In the Harvard Alumni Bulletin of this date, “Undergraduate” columnist Edward A. Grossman ’64 devotes more than two pages to a wide-ranging discussion of the topic. 
  • January 1968 – In Lowell Lecture Hall, nearly 1,000 individuals gather for a teach-in on the Vietnam War and the military draft that includes faculty speakers from Harvard, M.I.T., and Boston University. 
  • Late January 1970 – More than 200 undergraduates move into 56 suites of the newly completed low-rise of Mather House. 
  • January 1975 – University Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, begins hosting a 13-part series on “The Japanese Film” produced by San Francisco’s KQED-TV for the Public Broadcasting Service. The series covers a broad spectrum of films from the past quarter century and includes guest interviews. Reischauer’s first guest is celebrated actor Toshiro Mifune. – From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower