This month in Harvard history

April 23, 1949 — For the eighth consecutive time, the Harvard Varsity Crew wins the Compton Cup Race on the Charles, outrowing teams from Princeton, MIT, and Rutgers. “All of the races were rowed under miserable conditions — wind, rough water, rain, and, in the varsity race, semi-darkness,” notes Athletics Director William J. Bingham ’16.

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

April 1954 — Inspired by the success of a 1953 loan exhibition of French drawings, the Fogg Museum presents the largest public showing of 16th- and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish watercolors, prints, and drawings ever mounted in the U.S. Included are 67 choice works from the Collection de Grez held by Belgium’s Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, and 152 works from the Fogg (including 61 Rembrandt etchings) and local collections.

April 1965 — For the first time, Harvard’s endowment exceeds $1 billion, thereby realizing a long-held goal of Treasurer Paul C. Cabot.

April 23, 1966 — At her own insistence, Natalie Wood — dubbed “Worst Actress of the Year” by “The Harvard Lampoon” — comes to Cambridge to pick up her dubious distinction before a throng of enthusiastic onlookers.

April 20, 1968 — New York Mayor John V. Lindsay visits Harvard as the Republican Club’s Man of the Year.

April 7, 1973 — Civil-rights activist Coretta Scott King visits the Pound Building for a dinner with 49 members of the Harvard community

April 16, 1974 — At the Loeb Drama Center, pantomimist Marcel Marceau delivers the 1974 Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture.

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