Featured series 
Tag: History
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Nation & World
Donald Harnish Fleming
At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on Oct. 6, 2009, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Donald Harnish Fleming, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Donald Fleming was a scholar of intellectual history and the history of science and medicine.
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Nation & World
‘Lessons from a Long War’
Ryan C. Crocker, a veteran of five ambassadorships in the Middle East, shares lessons from “every major setback.”
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Nation & World
Distinguished Harvard Professor Celebrates Historic Intellectual Relationship
A Harvard University professor and one of the US’s most distinguished orators yesterday delivered a far-ranging lecture about the historic relationship between Cambridge and Harvard to commemorate Cambridge’s 800th anniversary.
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Nation & World
The Race Between Education and Technology
Goldin and Katz discuss the U.S. educational and technological meltdown circa 1980, and examine the glory days of the 20th century when the country’s educational system made it the richest in the nation.
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Nation & World
ACT UP encore
A new exhibit at the Carpenter Center titled “ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993” examines the history of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power through a series of powerful graphics created by various artist collectives that were part of the influential group.
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Nation & World
Jon Alpert wins 2009 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard will present the 2009 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence to veteran reporter Jon Alpert.
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Nation & World
Around the Schools: Radcliffe Institute
The Radcliffe Institute’s first decade is being celebrated this fall, starting with a two-day symposium Oct. 8 and 9 — a star-power taste of the institute’s signature interdisciplinary exchanges.
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Nation & World
A New Literary History of America
This compilation of original essays features a myriad of voices from Harvard. Ingrid Monson, Peter Sacks, Cass Sunstein, Helen Vendler, and others take on Americana’s finest: porn, country music, and J.D. Salinger.
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Nation & World
Longfellow online exhibition recognized by ACRL
The ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section has selected the online exhibition “Public Poet, Private Man: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at 200” as a winner of the 2009 Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab “American Book Prices Current” Exhibition Award.
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Nation & World
The first tailors? Researchers find ancient fiber
“Making strings and ropes is a sophisticated invention,” said Ofer Bar-Yosef, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at Harvard University. “They might have used this fiber to create parts of clothing, ropes, or baskets — for items that were mainly used for domestic activities.” The fibers were discovered in an analysis of clay deposits in Dzudzuana…
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Nation & World
Hasty Pudding Club Forms at Harvard: September 8, 1795
On this day in 1795, 21 Harvard students gathered in a dorm room and formed a secret social club to cultivate “friendship and patriotism.” Members agreed to take turns providing a pot of hasty pudding for the meetings. Thus did the Hasty Pudding Club, the nation’s oldest dramatic institution, get its name…
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Nation & World
Oklahoman’s book project archive Harvard-bound
The university’s Houghton Library recently purchased the archive he developed for his 1989 book, “What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam?” “It is still hard for me to believe that something that came from my head and hands will end up being preserved forever between the walls of such a great institution,” said McCloud,…
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Nation & World
The Origins of Canadian and American Political Differences
Guns, government, same-sex marriage — the U.S. and Canada couldn’t be more dissimilar. Kaufman explores the history and culture of the two lands and asks why Canada is so close, yet so far away.
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Nation & World
Taking the next step
Melissa McCormick reflects on her journey from modern dance to her current position as a newly tenured professor of Japanese art and culture in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
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Nation & World
Finding the founding ideas
In 1788, Thomas Shippen of Philadelphia, a citizen of the world’s newest nation, visited the French royal court at Versailles. He was awed by its pomp, its riches, and – as he wrote – its “Oriental splendor.” But Shippen was also repulsed. He remarked on the arrogance and waste of royal life, and on the…
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Nation & World
Impressions of women
More than ever, the Harvard Art Museum is making it easier for scholars and students to use its permanent collection (more than 250,000 works) to shed light on a variety of disciplines.
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Nation & World
This month in Harvard history
June 21, 1776 — The College reassembles in Cambridge after its eight-month stay in Concord.
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Nation & World
Six faculty named Cabot Fellows
Six professors in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) have been named Walter Channing Cabot Fellows. The annual awards recognize tenured faculty members for distinguished accomplishments in the fields of literature, history, or art, broadly conceived.
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Nation & World
‘Water guy’ John Briscoe stays in motion
For someone who deep-sixed his BlackBerry (instant e-mail was taking over his life) and traded the local newspaper for a good book (“What do I need to know about Celtics’ scores?”), John Briscoe ’76 is as worldly a person as you are ever likely to meet.
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Nation & World
O’Connor marks women’s progress in legal profession
Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, turns 80 years old next year. O’Connor — chipper, funny, and precise — spoke at a luncheon sponsored annually by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, which awarded the former justice its Radcliffe Medal.
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Nation & World
This month in Harvard history
June 1913 — Having proved itself during a five-year experimental period, the Business School emerges from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to become an independent graduate school.
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Nation & World
GSAS awards medal to four for service, scholarship
For 20 years now, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) has awarded its Centennial Medal to a select group of graduates who have made significant contributions to society and scholarship. This year’s recipients: an art historian who encouraged viewers to simply look; a historian who explored the worldwide impact of slavery; an economist…
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Nation & World
Dean Tosteson dies at age 84
Daniel C. Tosteson, the Caroline Shields Walker Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology, who served an extraordinary two decades as dean of Harvard Medical School, from 1977 to 1997, died peacefully on May 27 after a long illness. He was 84 years old.
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Nation & World
As the Civil War finally ends, a relieved, sad, graduation day
The Commencement of 1865 and the day of commemoration that followed it hold a unique spot in Harvard history. Though some military actions were still taking place, the Civil War had essentially ended in April of that year. John Langdon Sibley, head librarian at Harvard, wrote in his diary that there had already been a…
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Nation & World
Ernest May, Harvard professor and eminent historian of international relations, dies at 80
Ernest May, a renowned historian of international relations and foreign policy and professor of history at Harvard University, died on June 1 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston from complications following surgery, according to his family. He was 80.
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Nation & World
Groundbreaking professorship in LGBT studies
Harvard has received a $1.5 million gift from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus (HGLC) to endow the F.O. Matthiessen Visiting Professorship of Gender and Sexuality. Harvard Overseer Mitchell L. Adams ’66, M.B.A. ’69, will inform participants at the annual HGLC Commencement dinner that a campaign spanning several years has reached its goal. Named after…
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Nation & World
O’Connor named Radcliffe Medalist
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has announced that Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, will be awarded the 2009 Radcliffe Institute Medal at the annual Radcliffe Day luncheon on Friday (June 5). Barbara J. Grosz, dean of the Radcliffe Institute, will give opening remarks…
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Nation & World
Sobering poems, more sobering oration mark PBK
Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) chapter first met in 1781, two years before the end of the Revolutionary War.
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Nation & World
Seceding from the secessionists
Deep in Civil War Mississippi, where manicured plantations gave way to wild swampland and thick pine forests, a young white man named Newton Knight led a ragtag band of guerilla fighters against the Confederate Army. His story is one of personal bravery and unwillingness to adhere to the secessionist movement that all but surrounded him.
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Nation & World
This month in Harvard history
May 21, 1940 — “The Harvard Crimson” publishes a statement endorsed by hundreds of students vowing “never under any circumstances to follow the footsteps of the students of 1917” who had gone off to fight in World War I. Thirty-four members of the Class of 1917 defend their actions in a statement published on May…