Featured series 
Tag: History
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Arts & Culture
Houghton to host four major symposia
The year 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Ballets Russes, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the 300th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Johnson — and all four will be celebrated at Houghton Library.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Feb. 29, 1672 — President Charles Chauncy dies in office. Feb. 10, 1853 — Jared Sparks steps down as President; James Walker, Class of 1814, immediately succeeds him to become Harvard’s 18th President. Feb. 26, 1862 — President Cornelius Conway Felton dies in office. February 1900 — Through the efforts of the Cambridge Cantabrigia Club,…
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Campus & Community
Harvard joins Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies
Harvard University is the most recent member of the Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies (NCAIS). The NCAIS, inaugurated in June 2008 by the Newberry Library in Chicago, is composed of 10 research universities that have faculty expertise in the field of American Indian Studies. Harvard was inducted Dec. 1.
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Campus & Community
Manela AAAS visiting scholar
Erez Manela, Harvard’s Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History, is among eight individuals who have been awarded fellowships as part of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ (AAAS) Visiting Scholars Program for 2009. The fellowship program supports scholars and practitioners in the early stages of their careers who show leadership potential in the humanities,…
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Nation & World
Religion in the vernacular
In 1215, Pope Innocent III convened the Fourth Council of the Lateran, a religious convocation that laid out to hundreds of bishops, abbots, priors, and Christian patriarchs 70 new decrees. One enjoined the clergy to stop frequenting taverns, engaging in trials by combat, hunting, and practicing what might be called noncelibate habits.
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Campus & Community
Faculty of Arts and Sciences Standing Committees 2008-09
Upon the recommendation of the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Harvard President Drew Faust has approved and announced the following Standing Committees. Standing Committees of the faculty are constituted to perform a continuing function. Each committee has been established by a vote of the faculty, and can be dissolved only by…
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Campus & Community
College’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter welcomes 48 new members
Forty-eight seniors were recently elected to the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), Alpha Iota of Massachusetts.
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Science & Tech
Researchers study glaciers on Earth’s coldest desert
It’s December, and undergraduate Jenny Middleton bundles up to face the cold. While all across campus, students, and faculty don their winter gear, Middleton is not preparing for the New England winter; she is preparing for an expedition through the Earth’s coldest desert: the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica.
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Campus & Community
Plummer, Noble honored at Memorial Church
It was only last year that a crowded room in Salem, Mass., chuckled as the Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes of the Memorial Church remarked that the city had erected a statue of “Bewitched” actress Elizabeth Montgomery — an irony as her sole relationship to Salem was her role as a TV witch. Salem’s real…
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Science & Tech
Of Neanderthals and dairy farmers
Harvard Archaeology Professor Noreen Tuross sought to rehabilitate the image of Neanderthals as meat-eating brutes last week, presenting evidence that, though they almost certainly ate red meat, Neanderthal diets also consisted of other foods — like escargot.
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Arts & Culture
Class, war, and discrimination in 1812 Korea
Sun Joo Kim’s laugh is as easy as it is infectious. Her cheery nature no doubt comes in handy when she’s conducting her intensive research in three complex languages.
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Nation & World
Panel looks at ‘the crime of all crimes’
On Dec. 9, 1948, the United Nations adopted a convention that for the first time in history provided a legal definition for genocide. Organized mass murder with the intention of destroying an ethnic or national group, a legacy of World War II, was still a fresh world memory — just as it is fresh today,…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Dec. 29, 1627 — John Harvard enters Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, England.
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Campus & Community
Renewing a venerable experiment
Even as we absorb the implications of the global financial crisis and plan for how we might react to it, our commitment to provide our undergraduates with an unparalleled academic experience remains as strong as ever. Progress continues with our new Program in General Education and with planning for our ambitious House renewal effort. It…
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Campus & Community
Caroline Kennedy honors public service award winners
Two young leaders, whose work on the front lines of public service has won national acclaim, were honored on Nov. 14 at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).
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Nation & World
Revising Japan’s constitution: History, headlines, and prospects
For months now, the pirates operating off the coast of Somalia have been making trouble for the world’s maritime shipping network. Now it appears their grappling hooks may have gotten entangled in another, very different web: the complicated question of revision of the Japanese constitution, specifically of Article 9, which contains the “renunciation of war”…
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Campus & Community
Remarks of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
Remarks by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at Harvard University’s 2008 Convocation.
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Campus & Community
Harvard awards Sen. Kennedy honorary degree
Political dignitaries, family members, current and former colleagues, faculty, students, old friends, and admirers were all part of the capacity crowd that filled Harvard’s Sanders Theatre Dec. 1 to honor the life of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Nov. 14, 1953 — Before several hundred onlookers, the Harvard Engineering Society unveils a plaque on the south tower of Harvard Stadium to mark the structure’s 50th anniversary. Unveiling honors fall to Mrs. George B. de Gersdorff, “whose husband, a member of the Class of 1888, prepared the architectural designs for the Stadium.” (Quoted from…
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Arts & Culture
Poetry, music, death take the stage at New College Theatre
John Adams ’69, A.M. ’72 returned to Harvard on Nov. 17, where he attended a performance of his piece by Harvard’s Bach Society Orchestra (a group he led in the 1960s) at the New College Theatre.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Nov. 14, 1953 — Before several hundred onlookers, the Harvard Engineering Society unveils a plaque on the south tower of Harvard Stadium to mark the structure’s 50th anniversary. Unveiling honors fall to Mrs. George B. de Gersdorff, “whose husband, a member of the Class of 1888, prepared the architectural designs for the Stadium.” (Quoted from…
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Arts & Culture
Appreciating Billie Jean King’s contribution to second-wave feminism
In a stately room in the Barker Center, flanked by portraits of famous men, Billie Jean King holds court. Not physically. She’s the topic of discussion, the name on everyone’s lips. One would think this were the after party of her notorious 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match with Bobby Riggs, the match she…
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Campus & Community
Field trip
For well over a century, Harvard and Yale have gone head-to-head at the end of November for the epic football match known simply as “The Game.” The contest is steeped in history and tradition, not just for the undergraduates who take to the field but also for the thousands of students and alumni who descend…
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Science & Tech
Moral dimensions of ‘the scientific life’
Scientific knowledge is reliable and it is authoritative. It is also often understood to be impersonal: The personal characteristics of a researcher are not thought to influence his or her findings. In recent work, historian Steven Shapin assumes the reliability and authority of scientific knowledge but illustrates how scientists’ personal characteristics and traits figure prominently…
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Arts & Culture
Probing an unlikely friendship
Theirs was an unlikely friendship. One man was a black abolitionist, orator, and journalist who had been a slave from Maryland, the other a white politician from the backwoods of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
November 1942 — A Harvard Alumni Association advertisement for the well-known Harvard chair (black with gold trim and mahogany-colored arms; weight: 28 pounds; advertised price: $13.50) yields the following historical details: “Many Harvard men know well this famous ‘Freshman’ chair which can be traced far back into the history of the college . . .…