Campus & Community

This month in Harvard history

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March 24, 1949 – In Sanders Theatre, Harvard debaters meet counterparts from Cambridge University, England, to consider the following proposition: “Resolved, That the American Revolution was a mistake.” Not surprisingly, Cambridge argues the affirmative. Harvard wins the debate, which is its third consecutive contest with a British university.

March 27, 1949 – The Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society join forces with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Bach’s B-minor Mass, under the baton of Serge Koussevitzky. The annual Pension Fund Concert comes during Koussevitzky’s 25th and final BSO season.

March 1950 – The Harvard Society for Minority Rights forms as an affiliate of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). HSMR President Walter C. Carrington ’52 indicates that the organization will also act on behalf of other minority groups.

March 15, 1951 – “A Touch of the Times”and “Much Ado About Studying” – the first and second productions of the student-run Ivy Films – begin a one-week run at Boston’s Beacon Hill Theater.

March 26, 1963 – Under the baton of Erich Leinsdorf, the Boston Symphony Orchestra gives the final performance of its six-concert Cambridge Series in Sanders Theatre. Since 1881 (when the BSO was founded), the series had presented more than 500 concerts.

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