This month in Harvard history

March 23, 1639 – In recognition of John Harvard’s recent bequest, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony orders “that the colledge agreed upon formerly to bee built at Cambridg shalbee called Harvard Colledge.”

March 25, 1675 – After little more than two years, Leonard Hoar resigns from a strife-ridden presidency and soon dies. Earlier in the winter after many tutors had already resigned, students had deserted the College in the wake of his harsh discipline. Hoar had gone so far as to have one student flogged by a prisonkeeper who is later dismissed for cruelty. His most enduring legacy proves to be the creation of catalogs of all Harvard graduates, living and dead, published at three- and five-year intervals, and grouped by Class year. The five-year series continues until 1930.

March 30, 1908 – The Corporation establishes the Graduate School of Business Administration. Under the deanship of Edwin Francis Gay, it begins operating in October as a department within the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

March 23, 1912 – The Boston Elevated Railway Co. opens the Harvard Square subway station. BERC expends about $10 million for the entire Cambridge subway project, which includes a special Stadium Station, train yards, and repair shops in an area bounded by Charles River Road (now Memorial Drive), University Road, and Eliot, Boylston (now Kennedy), and Bennett Sts. (The train yards/Stadium Station area is now occupied by the Kennedy School of Government and John Fitzgerald Kennedy Park.)

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