Featured series 
Tag: Harvard History
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Campus & Community
A record pool leads to a record-low admissions rate
A record applicant pool of 27,462 has led to an admission rate of 7.1 percent, the lowest in the history of Harvard College. Traditional admission letters (and e-mails) were sent on March 31 to 1,948 students. Last year 2,058 applicants were admitted from a pool of 22,955.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
March 13, 1944 — Between matinees at Boston’s RKO Theatre, composer-pianist Duke Ellington visits Paine Hall to give a 20-minute lecture on the blues (“Negro Music in America”). At the keyboard, Ellington illustrates his talk with “Sophisticated Lady,” “Subtle Slough,” “Dancers in Love,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” and “Mood Indigo.”
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
March 23, 1639 — In recognition of John Harvard’s recent bequest, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony orders “that the colledge agreed upon formerly to bee built at Cambridg shalbee called Harvard Colledge.”
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Ca. February 1960 — As Harvard and Radcliffe expand their joint activities, Radcliffe students achieve several firsts for women: — Sarah Fuller ’61 becomes President of the Organ Society and the first woman to head a Harvard-Radcliffe organization. — Linda Greenberg ’62 defeats David Hemmendinger ’62 for the presidency of the Liberal Union.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
February 1950 — A capacity Sanders Theatre crowd hears Eleanor Roosevelt discuss “The World Struggle for Human Rights,” as guest of Harvard’s United Nations Council. She urges the U.S. to ratify the U.N. Covenant of Human Rights, the legal underpinning to the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
February 1943 — Animator Walt Disney visits Harvard to consult with Anthropology Department Chair Earnest A. Hooton about a forthcoming Technicolor film ridiculing Adolf Hitler’s racist theories. On the steps of the Faculty Club, Disney tells the Boston press that he plans to leave Hitler “out of the picture,” since “too much attention has already…
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Campus & Community
A record applicant pool for the College
In the first year without early action, more than 27,000 students have applied to Harvard for entrance next September, shattering the previous record of 22,955 set this past year. Harvard eliminated its early action program starting with the Class of 2012 because early admission programs tend to disadvantage students from modest economic backgrounds and often…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Dec. 13, 1856 — A(bbott) Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s future 22nd President, is born in Boston.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Nov. 11, 1951 — On Armistice Day (now Veterans’ Day), an overflow crowd jams the Memorial Church for the dedication of the World War II Memorial wall, bearing the names of those from the Harvard family who gave their lives in service to the nation. The guest preacher is the Rt. Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill,…
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Campus & Community
University namesake celebrates 400th
It is 1607 in England. Queen Elizabeth I has died only four years earlier. King James I, her successor, has already commissioned a new Bible translation that will indelibly mark the English language four years later.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
November 1791 — A writer in the Boston press accuses Harvard of poisoning students’ minds with Edward Gibbon’s monumental “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” (1776-88). President Joseph Willard replies that far from even considering Gibbon, the College uses a text by French historian Abbé Millot. Nathaniel Ames, who left Harvard…
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Campus & Community
Somber, joyful service marks 75th birthday
Over a thousand people crowded into the Memorial Church Sunday (Nov. 11) for a special birthday. Seventy-five years earlier, almost to the minute, the Colonial-style structure was dedicated on Armistice Day 1932.
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Arts & Culture
Digging history in Harvard Yard
It was crowded in the hole in Harvard Yard, with sophomore Reyzl Geselowitz and freshman Alison Liewen crouching in the square pit, elbow to elbow and more than a yard deep in Harvard’s dark earth.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Nov. 23, 1876 — Princeton convenes a meeting in Springfield, Mass., that results in the formation of the Intercollegiate Football Association (Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia). Yale decides not to join but does contribute to the development of the IFA’s modified rugby rules.
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Arts & Culture
Tale of John Harvard’s surviving book
This November, Harvard University will mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Harvard, not the institution’s founder as he is sometimes credited, but rather its first major benefactor. Such a noteworthy anniversary warrants reflection, although, unfortunately, a great many details about both the history of John Harvard and the legacy of his library…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Nov. 6, 1770 — Rumblings of Revolution: Joseph Avery, Class of 1771, orates on “Oppression and Tyranny” before the Speaking Club.
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Arts & Culture
Washington Allston, a name to remember
When you graduate from a University that counts dozens of U.S. presidents and Supreme Court justices — and hundreds of distinguished scholars, scientists, and Nobel Prize winners — among its alumni, it is easy, even for the most accomplished and talented, to slip through the cracks into obscurity. One such alumnus whose reputation has fallen…
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Arts & Culture
Remembering with the Memorial Church at 75
When the 11th hour struck on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the four-year nightmare of World War I — “The Great War” — officially ended. The world awoke to find some 22 million dead and a like number physically wounded. Never before had any generation witnessed such concentrated death and destruction.…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
October 1836 — In the “North American Review,” Henry Russell Cleveland, Class of 1827, aims a verbal wrecking ball at Harvard’s buildings:
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Campus & Community
University inaugurates Drew Faust
It’s happened only 28 times in 371 years, so when a new Harvard president is inaugurated, the occasion is bound to be a memorable one. And the installation of Drew Faust, scheduled for Oct. 12, is shaping up to be one of the most memorable ever.
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Campus & Community
American Indians bless search for Harvard roots
With a ceremonial blessing and a cautionary reminder of native peoples’ historic oppression, a group of American Indian leaders joined an assemblage of experienced and budding archaeologists Wednesday (Sept. 26) to begin the search for Harvard’s Indian College roots.
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Arts & Culture
Exhibitions from Harvard Archives to mark presidential inauguration
In conjunction with the Oct. 12 inauguration of Drew Faust as president of Harvard, the Harvard University Archives has developed two special exhibitions that highlight the history of Harvard, its governance, and its presidency.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Sept. 19, 1782 — The Harvard Corporation votes to establish the Medical School, following a detailed plan from President Joseph Willard and Professor Edward Wigglesworth. The plan calls for new books in chemistry and medicine, “a complete anatomical and surgical apparatus,” three new professorships, and organized lectures with required clinical components.
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Campus & Community
Harvard christens School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
An afternoon of reflection, promise, and a bit of humor marked the official launch of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences on Thursday (Sept. 20), the first new Harvard school since the John F. Kennedy School of Government was created 71 years ago as the Graduate School of Public Administration.
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Campus & Community
This Month in Harvard history
Sept. 19, 1639 — Accused of neglecting and physically mistreating students, Nathaniel Eaton is fined and discharged as Master of the College by the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Harvard closes its doors and dismisses students after little more than a year’s operation.
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Campus & Community
Faust inauguration takes shape
The inauguration of Drew Faust as Harvard’s 28th president will feature time-honored tradition — ancient artifacts and silver — world music, and talk of tomorrow’s promise.