History of the Office

Harvard Presidents Harvard Timeline World Timeline
1636: Harvard College established.
Dunster signature Henry Dunster (1609-1659) Term of office: 1640-1654 Education: Magdalene College, Cambridge University, England (B.A. 1631; M.A. 1634). Professional background: Clergyman, educator. Immediate past position: Schoolmaster and church curate in Bury, England.





1650: President and Fellows of Harvard College established.		 1643: The colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven form The United Colonies of New England.

1648: Europe’s Thirty Years’ War ends.
Portrait of Charles Chauncy Charles Chauncy (1592-1672) Term of office: 1654-1672 (died in office in February). Education: Trinity College, Cambridge University (B.A. 1614; M.A. 1617; B.D. [Bachelor of Divinity] 1624). Professional background: Greek lecturer at Trinity; vicar to several English churches. Immediate past position: Minister in Scituate, Mass. 1665: Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk becomes the first Native American to receive a Harvard degree. 1665: Newton conceives the theory of universal gravitation and develops early forms of calculus.
Hoar signature Leonard Hoar (ca. 1630-1675) Term of office: 1672-1675. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1650; A.M. 1653); Cambridge University, England (M.D. 1671). Professional background: Ecclesiastical posts in England, biblical scholarship. 1674: Harvard College publishes what is believed to be the first yearbook of college graduates. 1674: Using a microscope, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek gives the first accurate description of red blood cells.
Oakes signature Urian Oakes (ca. 1631-1681) Terms of office: Acting President, 1675-1680; President, 1680-1681 (died in office on Aug. 4) Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1649; A.M. 1652). Professional background: Ecclesiastical posts in England, grammar-school headmaster, orator. Immediate past position: Minister in Cambridge, Mass.    
Rogers signature John Rogers (1630-1684) Term of office: 1682-1684 (died in office on July 12) Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1649; A.M. 1652). Professional background: Assisted (without ordination) his brother-in-law William Hubbardís ministry and practiced medicine (without medical training) on parishioners in Ipswich, Mass. Immediate past position: Presumably as above.    
Portrait of Increase Mather Increase Mather (1639-1723) Terms of office: Acting President, 1685-1686; Rector (a unique title), 1686-1692; President, 1692-1701. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1656); Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland (A.M. 1658). Professional background: Pastor of North (Second) Church, Boston, Mass. Immediate past position: As above (Mather continued his Boston pastorate during his 16-year Harvard executive term).   1690: Spain establishes its first mission in Texas.

1693: The College of William and Mary is founded.

1701: Yale College is founded.
Leverett signature John Leverett (1662-1724) Term of office: 1708-1724 (died in office on May 14) Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1680; A.M. 1683). Professional background: Lawyer, judge, legislator, provincial envoy. Immediate past position: Provincial Councilor, Eastern Maine. 1720: Massachusetts Hall built. 1720: Spain begins occupying Texas.
Portrait of Benjamin Wadsworth Benjamin Wadsworth (1670-1737) Term of office: 1725-1737 (died in office on March 27). Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1690; A.M. 1693). Professional background: Clergyman.   1728: James Bradley detects stellar aberration, the apparent motion of stars caused by Earth’s rotation. This observation provides the first solid confirmation of the Copernican heliocentric theory.
Portrait of Edward Holyoke Edward Holyoke (1689-1769) Term of office: 1737-1769 (died in office on June 1, not long before his 80th birthday, making him the oldest to serve as Harvard President). Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1705; A.M. 1708). Professional background: Clergyman. Immediate past position: Pastor to a church in Marblehead, Mass. 1761: John Winthrop, the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, arranges the first American astronomical expedition to observe Venus’s transit over the Sun. 1751: China invades Tibet (an action repeated 199 years later).
Locke signature Samuel Locke (1732-1778) Term of office: 1770-1773. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1755; A.M. 1758). Professional background: Clergyman. Immediate past position: Pastor in Sherborn, Mass.   1770: Eleven colonists are shot by British troops in the Boston Massacre.
Langdon signature Samuel Langdon (1723-1797) Term of office: 1774-1780 Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1740; A.M. 1743). Professional background: Clergyman. Immediate past position: Pastor in Portsmouth, N.H.   1776: The U.S. Declaration of Independence is signed.
Portrait of Joseph Willard Joseph Willard (1738-1804) Term of office: 1781-1804 (died in office on Sept. 25). Education: Harvard College (A.B., 1765; A.M. 1768). Professional background: Clergyman. Immediate past positions: Pastor of the First Parish, Beverly, Mass.; first corresponding secretary (1780) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 1800: Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic at Harvard Medical School, gives the first smallpox vaccinations in the U.S. 1791: The U.S. Bill of Rights takes effect.

1804: Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of France.
Silhouette of Samuel Webber Samuel Webber (1759-1810) Term of office: 1806-1810 (died in office on July 17). Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1784; A.M. 1787). Professional background: Clergyman. Immediate past position: Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy (Harvard).   1808: The U.S. bans further importation of African slaves, but illegal traffic continues.
Portrait of John Thornton Kirkland John Thornton Kirkland (1770-1840) Term of office: 1810-1828. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1789; A.M. 1792). Professional background: Clergyman. Immediate past position: (Probably) Pastor of New South Church, Boston, Mass. 1817: Harvard establishes the first university law school. 1814: British troops burn the U.S. Capitol and the White House during the War of 1812, which ends this year with the Treaty of Ghent.
Photo of Josiah Quincy Josiah Quincy (1772-1864) Term of office: 1829-1845. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1790; A.M. 1793). Professional background: Lawyer (with service in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Massachusetts Senate). Immediate past position: Mayor of Boston.   1831: Nat Turner leads a Virginia slave revolt.

1836: The Battle of the Alamo. Texas declares independence from Mexico.
Portrait of Edward Everett Edward Everett (1794-1865) Term of office: 1846-1849. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1811; A.M. 1814); University of Göttingen, Germany (Ph.D. 1817) Professional background: Clergyman, orator, government official (with service in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Massachusetts governorship). Immediate past position: U.S. Minister to Great Britain. 1846: World’s first demonstration of ether as a surgical anesthetic at Massachussetts General Hospital. 1847: The U.S. issues its first postage stamp.
Portrait of Jared Sparks Jared Sparks (1789-1866) Term of office: 1849-1853. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1815; A.M. 1818), Harvard Divinity School (studies, 1818; HDS did not grant degrees at this time). Professional background: Clergyman, historian. Immediate past position: McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History (est. and first held [by Sparks] in 1838, Harvard). 1852: Harvard and Yale rowing clubs meet for the nation’s first intercollegiate rowing contest. Harvard wins. 1850: A telegraph cable across the English Channel connects England to continental Europe.
Portrait of James Walker James Walker (1794-1874) Term of office: 1853-1860. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1814; A.M. 1817), Harvard Divinity School (studies, 1817; HDS did not grant degrees at this time). Professional background: Harvard professor. Immediate past position: Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity (Harvard).   1855: Florence Nightingale pioneers in providing nursing care on the battlefield.
Portrait of Felton Cornelius Conway Felton (1807-1862) Term of office: 1860-1862 (died in office on Feb. 26). Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1827; A.M. 1830). Professional background: Educator (with service on the Massachusetts Board of Education, as Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and as president of a Boston physical-education society). Immediate past position: Eliot Professor of Greek Literature (Harvard).   1861: The U.S. Civil War begins.
Portrait of Hill Thomas Hill (1818-1891) Term of office: 1862-1868. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1843; A.M. 1846), Harvard Divinity School (completed studies, 1845; HDS did not grant degrees at this time). Professional background: Clergyman, mathematician, educator. Immediate past position: President of Antioch College, Ohio. 1867: Harvard establishes the nation’s first university school of dentistry. 1863: Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.
Photo of Eliot Charles William Eliot (1834-1926) Term of office: 1869-1909 (longest presidency in Harvard history). Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1853; A.M. 1856). Professional background: Chemist. Immediate past position: Professor of Analytical Chemistry (M.I.T.). 1875: The first Harvard-Yale football game takes place in New Haven, Connecticut. Harvard wins.



1886: Reginald Heber Fitz, the Shattuck Professor of Pathological Anatomy, becomes the first to recognize and name the disease of appendicitis.





1903: Harvard Stadium, the first stadium built for U.S. college athletics, is completed.

1908: Harvard Business School opens.		 1869: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organize the National Woman Suffrage Association.

1876: Sitting Bull defeats General Custer at the Little Bighorn.

1876: Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.

1896: The first modern Olympic games take place in Athens, Greece.

1903: The Wright Brothers fly the first airplane.

1905: Albert Einstein presents the special theory of relativity.
Portrait of Abbott Lawrence Lowell A(bbott) Lawrence Lowell (1856-1943) Term of office: 1909-1933. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1877), Harvard Law School (LL.B. 1880). Professional background: Harvard government professor. Immediate past position: Eaton Professor of the Science of Government (Harvard). 1915: The Harvard-Boston Expedition begins excavation of the temples of Amon-Ra and the two groups of pyramids in the adjacent desert. 1914-18: World War I. 1917: The Russian Revolution.

1929: The stock market crashes, plunging the U.S. into the Great Depression.

1933: Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
Photo of Conant James Bryant Conant (1893-1978) Term of office: 1933-1953. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1913, as a member of the Class of 1914), Harvard University (Ph.D. 1916). Professional background: Chemist. Immediate past position: Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry (Harvard).





1949: The first women graduate from the Medical School.		 1939-45: World War II.

1945: The U.S. drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

1945: The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.

1950-53: The Korean War.
Photo of Pusey Nathan Marsh Pusey(1907-2001) Term of office: 1953-1971. Education: Harvard College (A.B. 1928), Harvard University (A.M. 1932; Ph.D. 1937). Professional background: College president. Immediate past position: President of Lawrence College, Appleton, Wis.















1969: In the most controversial action of his administration, President Nathan Marsh Pusey calls in outside police to end a student takeover of University Hall.		 1954: Jonas Salk develops the first effective vaccine against polio.

1954-75: The Vietnam War.

1955: Spurred by Rosa Parks’s refusal to relinquish her seat to a white man on a segregated bus, the U.S. civil-rights struggle begins.

1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis.

1963: President Kennedy is assassinated.

1969: Astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the Moon.
Photo of Bok Derek Bok (b. March 22, 1930) Term of office: 1971-1991 and 2006-2007. Education: Stanford University (A.B. 1951), Harvard Law School (J.D. 1954), George Washington University (A.M. 1958). Professional background: Lawyer, Harvard law professor. Immediate past position: Dean of Harvard Law School.







1982: Mother Teresa of Calcutta delivers Class Day address to graduating seniors.		 1974: Watergate scandal. U.S. President Richard Nixon resigns.

1975: The U.S. pulls out of South Vietnam. Communist forces take over.

1989: Beijing’s Tiananmen Square protest is halted in a deadly crackdown by the Chinese government.

1989: The Berlin Wall comes down.

1990: Nelson Mandela freed by South African government.
Photo of Rudenstine Neil L. Rudenstine (b. Jan. 21, 1935) Term of office: 1991-2001. Education: Princeton University (B.A. 1956), Oxford University (B.A. 1959; M.A. 1963), Harvard University (Ph.D. 1964). Professional background: English and American literary scholar. Immediate past position: Executive Vice President, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New York.







1999: Creation of the interdisciplinary Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study as an integral part of Harvard.		 1991: The U.S. and its allies launch Operation Desert Storm (the Persian Gulf War).

1991: Apartheid ends in South Africa. 1995: U.S. troops to Bosnia.

1995: The bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City claims nearly 170 lives.
Photo of Summers Lawrence H. Summers (b. Nov. 30, 1954) Term of office: 2001-2006 Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. 1975), Harvard University (Ph.D. 1982). Professional background: Economics professor, served in a series of public-policy positions. Immediate past position: Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. 2001: Harvard pledges $1 million in scholarship funds to aid the family members of victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

2003: Harvard announces a $100 million pledge from Eli and Edythe Broad to found the Harvard/MIT Broad Institute.

2004: Harvard launches the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

2004: Harvard announces a new initiative aimed at overcoming economic barriers to college.

2005: Professor Roy Glauber wins Nobel Prize in Physics.

2005: Professor Emeritus Thomas Schelling wins Nobel Prize in Economics.

 2001: Thousands are killed when terrorists attack U.S.



2003: Iraq War begins.

2003: SARS outbreak is contained.


2004: Red Sox win World Series for first time in 86 years.






2005: Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people.