Tag: History

  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    Feb. 28, 1902 — The Athletic Committee approves the formation of a swimming club.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    Feb. 20-March 8, 1901 —French literary critic Gaston Deschamps gives a series of eight Sanders Theatre lectures in French on “Modern French Drama,” sponsored by the Cercle Français (French Club).

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Panel of experts addresses Lincoln’s legacy

    On Monday (Feb. 9), a team of experts assembled at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) to examine the history and profound impact of the tall, awkward, self-taught man from rural Kentucky who is credited with bringing about an end to slavery and saving the nation’s cherished founding principle of democratic rule.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Symbiotic’ Web archive launched

    A new Web archive created by faculty, students, and librarians at Harvard brings original research on Leonard Bernstein and his Boston roots to the public for the first time. The material, which went live on the Web on Jan. 23, was collected during undergraduate seminars and over the course of an international Bernstein Festival at…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Du Bois Institute gives Houghton Library Masonic certificate

    The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University recently gave a Masonic membership certificate signed by Prince Hall, a minister, abolitionist, and civil rights activist known as the father of Black Freemasonry in the United States, to Houghton Library.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Vivid scrolls from Japan tell timeless stories

    For nearly a decade, Melissa McCormick, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities, has been absorbed in the study of elaborate works of fiction. The themes she encounters — love, temptation, even family drama — are timeless. The format — narrow horizontal scrolls of mulberry paper, with hand-painted images and columns of calligraphy —…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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,…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    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.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    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,…

    1 minute
  • 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.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This week in Harvard history

    Dec. 8, 1955 – Dec. 12, 1969

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    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…

    22 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    December 1899 – December 1921

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    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…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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.

    6 minutes
  • 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,…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    Dec. 29, 1627 — John Harvard enters Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, England.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    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…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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).

    2 minutes
  • 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”…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    At GSD, UPenn’s Thomas Sugrue talks about ‘civil rights and the metropolis’

    For the first time in a generation, urban policy is back on the national agenda. Advocates for the nation’s cities have been thrilled by the announcement that the Obama administration will include a White House Office of Urban Policy.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Remarks of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy

    Remarks by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at Harvard University’s 2008 Convocation.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    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.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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…

    1 minute