Yesterday's News

1924 In a Crimson poll on Prohibition, the Harvard community votes nearly two to one to keep the Volstead Act in force, and 1488 to 940 in...

1924 In a Crimson poll on Prohibition, the Harvard community votes nearly two to one to keep the Volstead Act in force, and 1488 to 940 in favor of more rigorous enforcement.

Illustration by Mark Steele

1949 Statistics compiled by the Alumni Records Office indicate that "John Harvard," for the first time in history, lives west of the Hudson River: 50.5 percent of Harvard graduates now live outside New England and New York State, and their number is growing.

1954 The College announces that maids will no longer make students' beds, the first step in phasing out a housekeeping arrangement that began 295 years earlier.

1969 The Faculty votes to withdraw academic credit for Reserve Officers' Training Corps activities at Harvard—home of the oldest ROTC program in the country.

1979 The Science Center is evacuated after about 250 milliliters of nitroglycerine is discovered in a basement lab. The undergraduate who produced it, some in his dorm room, where he had been conducting experiments, leaves Harvard for the semester.

   

Most popular

All That’s Unseen charts the Harvard graduate’s uneasy journey from Appalachia to Cambridge and back.  

Harvard Weathers a Year of Turmoil

The federal government has launched unprecedented actions against the University. Here’s a guide.

Explore More From Current Issue

Caricature of a young man in front of red doors, wearing a green striped sweater.

In 1954, Gregory Corso moved into Eliot House. How he stayed there is a literary legend.

Modern building with large glass windows, surrounded by greenery and pedestrians.

A roundup of University news from the summer of 2026

Three young women posed side by side against red background.

The 2026-2027 Ledecky and Summer Undergraduate Fellows