Harvard Today: October 29, 2014

Good morning, Harvard, and happy Wednesday! We know many of you read Harvard Today in lecture instead of paying attention (we’re flattered), so today we thought we’d provide some educational information so that you’re not missing out too much. I know, you’re welcome. Here’s presenting: (selected excerpts) about today in history!

1787 – Mozart's opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague. Shoutout to everyone in Humanities 10a!

1863 – Eighteen countries meet in Geneva and agree to form the International Red Cross.

1921 – The Harvard football team loses to Centre College in Kentucky (which at the time enrolled 264 students total), ending a 25 game winning streak. The Associated Press called this the greatest sports upset of the first half of the 20th century. Brutal. We want a rematch.

1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashes on Black Tuesday, ending the Roaring 20s and beginning the Great Depression.

1960 – Cassius Clay (aka Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight. He was 18.

2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing close to 300 people and  leaving nearly $70 billion in damages.

2013 – Turkey opens a sea railway tunnel connecting Europe and Asia across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul. So. Cool.

...and that’s just the start. For whatever reason, October 29 has been a pretty happening day every year. Take some time to read more about it yourself for the rest of class! Or maybe afterwards, we’re not going anywhere.

By Daniel N. Yue

IN THE ATMOSPHERE

Today will be mostly sunny, with a high of 57 degrees, a low of 40, and 0% chance of rain. While not as warm as its been for the past couple days, it could be worse: there have been rumors of snow this weekend. More than scary enough for Halloween.

IN THE D-HALLS

Lunch

Red Spiced Chicken Breast
Macaroni and Cheese
Roasted Eggplant, Pepper, and Squash Panini with Refried Beans

Dinner

Beef Pot Pie
Cajun Chicken Breast
Harvest Seitan Stew

ON FLYBY

1) Trending: Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’: Why listen to her version of ‘Blank Space’ when you can listen to some random person’s (channel name: Taylor Swift’) three minutes of techno pretending to be ‘Blank Space’ instead?

2) Hidden Gem: Harvard’s Hip Hop Archive: “Located on the second floor of Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute is a relatively new addition to Harvard, a pioneering center for research into hip hop, and a downright cool place”.

IN THE NEWS

1) Citing Workplace Injuries, DoubleTree Workers Call for Meeting with Faust: Students, workers, and local politicians convened for a roundtable discussion Tuesday evening to discuss workplace hazards at the Boston-Cambridge DoubleTree Suites and call on University President Drew G. Faust to help the hotel’s employees in their efforts to unionize.

2) Murray to Resign as SEAS Dean at Year’s End: In a letter addressed to colleagues earlier in the day, Murray wrote that her father’s recent death prompted a reevaluation of the rest of her career. “I began to assess how I wish to spend that time and concluded that I want to be less involved in day-to-day administration and more focused on accomplishing a few big things for which I have a real passion,” she wrote.

3) College to Begin Honor Council Nomination Process: According to Interim Secretary of the Administrative Board Brett Flehinger, everyone with a Harvard PIN will be able to nominate sophomores and juniors from Nov. 3 to Nov. 21. Administrators will ask undergraduates nominated through this process to apply for a position on the council by the end of the semester.

EVENTS

Head over to L166 at the Kennedy School at 4 p.m. for “You Have a Snapchat from Hillary Clinton”, a study group with IOP Fellow Kristen Soltis Anderson that will discuss the increasing use of technology and social media in political outreach to millennials. The session will feature Rob Saliterman, Team Lead for Elections and Issue Advocacy at Google (HBS ‘11), and is co-hosted by the Harvard Applied Math Society.

The Middle East Initiative is hosting a seminar with Ambassador Robert Ford (no, not that Rob Ford), former US Ambassador to Syria, from 2010 to 2014, and Algeria, from 2006 to 2008; moderated by Nicholas Burns, professor of the practice of international relations. The discussion will begin at 4:15 p.m. in the Allison Dining Room on the 5th floor of the Taubman Building at the Kennedy School.

Stop by Byerly Hall in Radcliffe Yard (8 Garden St.) at 5:30 p.m. for a showing of Santo António, a four-channel installation based on the Cannes-premiered theatrical version of the short Morning of St. Anthony’s Day (2012). The installation has been termed the “phantom” of its theatrical version, and is sure to be a uniquely immersive experience.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Students continued a string of protests in the name of DoubleTree workers on Tuesday with images of beds with accompanying quotes detailing hardships faced by the employees.