This month in Harvard history

• June 19, 1725 – The Harvard Corporation elects Benjamin Wadsworth, Class of 1690, as Harvard’s eighth President.
• June 11, 1776 – The Provincial Congress grants the College permission to reoccupy its buildings, and Harvard prepares to return from Concord.
• June 12, 1776 – The faculty passes a vote of thanks to the Town of Concord for sheltering the College during the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.
• June 21, 1776 – The College reassembles in Cambridge after its eight-month stay in Concord.
• June 10, 1890 – Across the Charles, Harvard dedicates 31 acres of athletic grounds as Soldiers Field, given by Maj. Henry Lee Higginson, Class of 1855 (degree work incomplete), in memory of six Harvard friends who died in Union Army during the Civil War. “Mates, the Princeton and the Yale fellows are our brothers,” Higginson declares. “Let us beat them fairly if we can, and believe that they will play the game just as we do.”

— From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower