9/11/04: The Class of 2008 moves in as freshmen. It is a simpler time: Natasha Bedingfield and Usher are the most-played artists on the radio and “CSI” is the top-rated show on TV.

10/27/04: The Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years. Revelers flood Harvard Square. Newfound fans in the Class of 2008 have waited two months for this victory.

11/20/04: Harvard beats Yale at The Game, taking the Ivy League Championship for the first time in seven years and maintaining its unbeaten record for the season.

1/14/05: President Summers speculates that “issues of intrinsic aptitude” might account for the lack of females atop the science, math, and engineering fields.

2/20/06: Facing another potential vote of no confidence and rising discontent among professors, Summers resigns. He is replaced by former Harvard president Derek C. Bok.

4/23/06: The Crimson reports that passages of then-sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan ’08’s book bear striking similarities to those written by another author, Megan F. McCafferty.

9/10/06: Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami speaks at the Institute of Politics, despite criticism from Gov. Mitt Romney and others.

2/11/07: Drew G. Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, is appointed the 28th president of Harvard. She is the first woman to hold the position.

2/14/07: Nathan J. Dern ’07 and recent graduate Alan D. “Scooter” Zackheim ’06 face off in “Beauty and the Geek.” Dern turns down the prize; across Cambridge, hearts flutter.

4/19/07: Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub opens. Named after an inn John Harvard gave to the College, it was designed in response to criticisms of the lack of undergraduate social space.

10/2/07: Then-Dean of the College David R. Pilbeam ends the undergraduate party grant program. A month-long standoff with the Undergraduate Council ensues.

12/13/07: The former owner of a Cambridge hair salon is convicted of raping a former Harvard undergraduate and sentenced to seven to 10 years in prison.

12/14/07: The case of former Harvard graduate student Alexander Pring-Wilson, who was charged with manslaughter in 2003, is declared a mistrial. In January, Pring-Wilson pleads guilty.

2/06/08: Paris Hilton makes history when she receives the Harvard Lampoon’s first-ever Woman of the Year Award. “You know, I’m like a lot of you Harvard students, really,” Hiltonsays on the steps of the Lampoon. “You have a Lamont Library. We also have a Lamont Library, except it’s a club in LA where celebs go to dance on tables and get crazy.”

4/10/08: The University announces a $1 billion overhaul of undergraduate Houses over 15 years—a charming gift to the departing Class of 2008.

Timeline: The Last Four Years