Curated category
Harvard College alumni
- John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963, while riding in a presidential motorcade.
- Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidency four times, the only person in American history to serve more than two terms.
- T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot wrote the opening of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" when he was twenty-two years old. The lines compared an evening sky to "a patient…
- Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest on the 14th of October 1912, while on his way to give a campaign speech in Milwaukee.
- J. Robert OppenheimerJ. Robert Oppenheimer stood in a control bunker near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the early morning hours of the 16th of July, 1945, holding a post to steady…
- Amy FinkelsteinAmy Finkelstein wanted to know whether health insurance actually made people healthier. It sounds like an obvious question.
- Al GoreAl Gore won more votes than his opponent on Election Day 2000, yet still lost the presidency. That outcome, decided by a Supreme Court ruling of 5-4 in Bush…
- David A. BellDavid Avrom Bell was born in New York City in 1961, into a family that thought seriously about ideas for a living. His father was the sociologist Daniel Bell.
- Terrence MalickTerrence Malick graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude in 1965, won a Rhodes Scholarship to study philosophy at Oxford, then walked away from the…
- Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger arrived in New York City on the 5th of September, 1938, a 15-year-old Jewish refugee who had fled Germany with his family just weeks before.
- Marvin MinskyMarvin Minsky once described intelligence as the possible product of the interaction of non-intelligent parts. That idea alone reshaped how scientists and…
- Caspar WeinbergerCaspar Weinberger spent six years and ten months as Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan, longer than anyone except Robert McNamara and, more recently…
- W. E. B. Du BoisW. E. B. Du Bois died on the 27th of August 1963 in Accra, Ghana, at the age of 95. The very next day, hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in…
- Michael CrichtonMichael Crichton stood 6 feet 9 inches tall, and he spent much of his life feeling out of place because of it. That restlessness never left him.
- Alexander Wheelock ThayerIn the winter of 1838, 1839, Alexander Wheelock Thayer taught at the Westfield School in Dedham, Massachusetts. He earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor…
- Thomas BulfinchThomas Bulfinch entered the world on the 15th of July 1796 in Newton, Massachusetts. He grew up within a merchant family that valued education despite having…
- Michael K. FrithMichael Kingsbury Frith was born on the 8th of July 1941 in Bermuda, and before most people had ever heard the names Kermit or Fozzie or Fraggle, he was…
- Richard Taylor (Confederate general)Richard Taylor died on the 12th of April, 1879, exactly eighteen years to the day after the Battle of Fort Sumter opened the Civil War he had fought so…
- Elliot ForbesElliot Forbes entered the world on the 20th of August 1917, into a family that defined Boston's cultural elite. His father Edward Forbes directed Harvard's…
- Richard D. WolffRichard David Wolff was born on the 1st of April 1942 in New Rochelle, New York. His parents had fled Nazism to escape Germany during World War II.
- Cornel WestCornel Ronald West was born on the 2nd of June 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the same city where his grandfather Clifton L. West, Sr.
- Melissa DellMelissa Dell grew up in Enid, Oklahoma. Her parents worked as civilian contractors at Vance Air Force Base. They managed the parts shop and ran a daycare…
- Graham E. FullerGraham E. Fuller spent 27 years inside the American intelligence and diplomatic apparatus, rising to vice-chairman of the National Intelligence Council…
- James GleickJames Gleick was born on the 1st of August 1954 in New York City, and he would go on to become what the Wall Street Journal called a master of three skills…