This month in Harvard history

Dec. 29, 1627 – John Harvard enters Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, England.

Dec. 20, 1672 – Leonard Hoar, Class of 1650, is formally installed as Harvard’s third President and the first to have graduated from the College

Dec. 6, 1920 – In Emerson Hall, Rabindranath Tagore gives a public lecture on “The Poet’s Religion” as guest of the Division of Philosophy.

Dec. 19, 1940 – In Sanders Theatre, pianist Jesús María Sanromá plays Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Serge Koussevitzky.

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. 2-3, 1942 – Seven Mexican and three Bolivian journalists visit Harvard while touring the U.S. and Canada to study wartime conditions.

Dec. 9, 1944 – Alumni begin to respond to Donald Moffat’s contest for devising new and more seasonable attire for traditionally top-hatted and dark-clad Commencement aides and marshals. A “Constant Reader” of the “Harvard Alumni Bulletin” proposes the following: “[. . .] No man representing Harvard should look as sad and uncomfortable as these lictors, bearing their funereal fasces about the Yard. “The remedy leaps to the lips of anyone not stultified by long residence in academic circles. You want them comfortable; you want them distinguishable. Dress them in bright togas, warm-colored gowns of orange, lemon, raspberry hue. (You may work out the symbolism any way you want to.)” (Quotations: “Harvard Alumni Bulletin,” 12/9/44)

Dec. 16, 1948 – The Law School Forum makes its first television appearance on Boston’s WBZ-TV with a discussion of Boston traffic and housing problems.

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