This month in Harvard history

Dec. 7, 1940 – Exactly one year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Harvard Alumni Association holds a special daylong symposium in Cambridge on Harvard and national defense. President James Bryant Conant addresses the topic during a dinner at the Harvard Club of Boston.

Dec. 6-7, 1941 – Harvard faculty, government officials, and labor delegates convene at the Business School for a conference on “Labor and National Defense.” It is believed to be the first meeting of its kind in the nation.

Dec. 8, 1941 – More than 1,200 undergraduates gather at noon in Sanders Theatre to hear U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s congressional address on Japan’s Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor. Before a jam-packed Sanders crowd that evening, President James Bryant Conant pledges the University’s full resources to help bring about swift and total victory, and he alerts the Harvard faculties to prepare to revise their curricula.

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