This month in Harvard history

May 6, 1945 — At noon a novel contraption appears on high as a helicopter hovers over Harvard and lands on the riverbank in front of the Business School. A Coast Guard pilot and another officer alight from the craft to present a letter from the president of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce to a representative from its Boston counterpart.

Watching from motor launches (docked at the Weld Boat House float) are officials such as Governor Maurice J. Tobin, who eventually walks across the Anderson Bridge to inspect the craft. The helicopter had retraced the route of Paul Revere’s legendary 18th-century horseback ride to Lexington.

May 1946 — O. C. Carmichael, of the Carnegie Corp., taps President James Bryant Conant to chair a 10-member commission of educational administrators charged with exploring the possibility of combining the nation’s major educational-testing groups (e.g., the College Entrance Examination Board and the American Council on Education). The commission report of Oct. 4, 1946, recommends “that there be established the Cooperative Educational Testing Service.” The report paves the way for the creation of the Educational Testing Service in 1947.

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