Headlines from Harvard history, November-December 1913-1988

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

1913 

Capping a 9-0 football season—with Harvard scoring a total 215 points to their opponents’ 21—the Crimson achieves its first victory (15-5) over the Elis in the 10-year-old Harvard Stadium.

1943 

A Bulletin editorial laments that “Too many boys…are coming to Harvard and other American colleges…woefully unprepared in speaking and writing ” English, and praises English A’s remedial courses for their important wartime role.

1958 

Plans are complete for an extension of Leverett House, which has given Mather Hall [renamed Old Quincy, and now Stone Hall] to Quincy House. For the first time, the University will build high: two 12-story glass-and-limestone towers will house 280 students.

After a letter in the Crimson reports that some landlords registered with the Harvard Housing Office refuse to rent to blacks, the office draws up a pledge of nondiscrimination that all landlords using its services must sign.

Three faculty members spend three weeks in Russia trying unsuccessfully to visit the Soviet space program’s computing center. Astronomer Fred Whipple remarks that the Russian rocketry program is definitely military, and being pushed at an enormous pace. Allen Hynek, associate director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, comments: “The United States may be losing the race for scientific supremacy because Americans are more interested in prosperity than posterity.”

1973 

The Yale Band, playing at halftime during Yale’s game against Cornell, forms an H on the field to honor the victims of President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday night massacre”—Archibald Cox ’34, LL.B. ’37; Elliot Richardson ’41, LL.B. ’44, and William Ruckelshaus, LL.B. ’60.

1988 

The University’s Association of Black Faculty and Administrators calls for an affirmative-action plan to ensure that black, Hispanic, and Native Americans comprise 10 percent of Harvard faculties by 1990, the centennial of the College graduation year of W.E.B. Du Bois, who later became Harvard’s first black Ph.D. recipient.

Related topics

You might also like

Yesterday’s News

How a book on fighting the “Devill World” survived Harvard’s historic fire.

At Harvard’s Beck-Warren House, Ghosts Speak Many Languages

The quirky 1833 home now hosts Celtic scholars.

A Forgotten Harvard Anthem

Published the year the Titanic sank, “Harvard’s Best” is a quizzical ode to the University.

Most popular

Ben S. Bernanke ’75 Shares Economics Nobel

Three scholars honored for work on banking and financial crises.

Mindfulness—the unconventional research of psychologist Ellen Langer

Psychologist Ellen Langer's unconventional research. Plus, read about applying mindfulness techniques to eating.

The True Cost of Grade Inflation at Harvard

How an abundance of A’s created “the most stressed-out world of all.”

Explore More From Current Issue

Older man in a green sweater holds a postcard in a warmly decorated office.

How a Harvard Hockey Legend Became a Needlepoint Artist

Joe Bertagna’s retirement project recreates figures from Boston sports history.

A woman gazes at large decorative letters with her reflection and two stylized faces beside them.

The True Cost of Grade Inflation at Harvard

How an abundance of A’s created “the most stressed-out world of all.”