Yesterday's News

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

1912

Noting that the $50,000 maintenance fund necessary for a new music building to replace Holden Chapel is $15,000 short, the editors remind readers that “ a healthy and useful university is forever uncovering new needs….”

 

1927

Economics surpasses English as a concentration choice for the first time, with more than 400 freshmen entering the field.

 

1937

Courtesy of NBC and the BBC, the Harvard Club of London hosts a live broadcast of The Game, including Harvard and Yale cheers transmitted back to the teams in the Harvard stadium. (Harvard won, 13-6.)

 

1947

Professors attempting to separate “the sheep from the goats” (as the editors remark)—by locking classroom doors at exactly seven minutes past the hour—run afoul of the Cambridge fire department, which notifies lecturers that obstructing emergency exits is illegal.

 

1952

In a straw poll of undergraduates, loser Adlai Stevenson nevertheless gets the largest slice of “Harvard’s normally Republican majority” since Woodrow Wilson beat a split G.O.P. in 1912. The faculty members who are polled go for Eisenhower, 379-298.

 

1967

The Program for Science in Harvard College gets under way; one goal is a $14-million science center north of the Yard.

 

1982

MIT pranksters disrupt The Game with a balloon that erupts from the earth and inflates in front of the Crimson bench—but Harvard wins 45-7.

 

1992

Harvard has “locked the doors and [thrown] away the keys” for the Yard dorms, the editors report. The installation of card-reading devices there will likely be extended to the Houses to crack down on crime, despite occasional glitches—a door held open too long for a good-night kiss summons a University police car to investigate.

Click here for the November-December 2012 issue table of contents

You might also like

Tips of the Hat(s)

On regalia, a Jack-of-all-trades retirement, and a Bok’s office bon mot.

Yesterday’s News

Including profundity and pretzels

An Original Magna Carta, Hidden in Plain Sight

A rare original surfaces at Harvard at an “almost providential” moment. 

Most popular

House Committee Subpoenas Harvard Over Tuition Costs

The University must turn over all requested materials related to tuition and financial aid by mid-July. 

The Professor Who Quantified Democracy

Erica Chenoweth’s data shows how—and when—authoritarians fall.

The Power of Patience

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

Explore More From Current Issue

How Harvard Students Handle Political Disagreements

The Undergraduate asks if intellectualism is really on life support.

Julia Rooney’s Cyanotype Art At Harvard

Julia Rooney’s paintings cross the analog-digital divide.