This week in Harvard history

April 15, 1937 — The College’s academic business comes to a virtual halt after printed announcements of a (nonexistent) noonday lecture on “Scientific Aspects of Birth Control” by one “Arnold N. Childes” lure some 2,000 students to the New (Lowell) Lecture Hall. Ten students mastermind the prank and pull it off with anonymity intact until many years past graduation.

April 23-27, 1951 — During a five-day Red Cross blood drive, Harvard and Radcliffe students help establish a new contribution record for New England: 934 pints. Students from Lesley College and Boston University’s Sargent School also contribute to the record, which had previously stood at 758 pints (from the Dec. 1950 drive). Phillips Brooks House sponsors the Harvard effort, chaired by Gilbert M. Eisner ’53.

April 17, 1953 — West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer visits Harvard.

April 4, 1955 — A Harvard tradition undergoes an electrifying change with the installation of an automatic bell-ringer in the Memorial Church.

April 14, 1955 — Steeplejack Laurie Young ascends the spire of the Memorial Church to survey the weathervane to determine whether it can be regilded in place. He begins the four-month job in early May.

April 23, 1955 — The Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society perform Bach’s B-minor Mass with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch. The concert marks the 100th collaboration of the BSO, the Glee Club, and the Choral Society. In a quiet postconcert ceremony, Munch receives the second Harvard Glee Club Medal for “outstanding contributions in the field of choral music.”

April 9, 1956 — The Senate Subcommittee on Disarmament convenes a special session in the Law School’s Ames Courtroom (Austin Hall). Presiding are Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey and Rhode Island’s John O. Pastore.

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