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Concord, Massachusetts
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Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2010 census, the population was 17,668. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston, the town center is located near where the confluence of the Sudbury and Assabet rivers forms the Concord River. The area which became the town of Concord was originally known as Musketaquid and it was one of the scenes of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the initial conflict in the American Revolutionary War. It developed into a rich literary center during the mid-nineteenth century. Featured were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau, the now-ubiquitous Concord grape was developed here. The area which became the town of Concord was originally known as Musketaquid, situated at the confluence of the Sudbury, the name Musketaquid was an Algonquian word for grassy plain, fitting the areas low-lying marshes and kettle holes. Native Americans had cultivated corn crops there, the rivers were rich with fish, however, the area was largely depopulated by the smallpox plague that swept across the Americas after the arrival of Europeans. In 1635, a group of settlers from Britain led by Rev. Peter Bulkley, the Battle of Lexington and Concord was the first conflict in the American Revolutionary War. On April 19,1775, a force of British Army regulars marched from Boston to Concord to capture a cache of arms that was stored in the town. Forewarned by Paul Revere and other messengers, the colonists mustered in opposition, following an early-morning skirmish at Lexington, where the first shots of the battle were fired, the British expedition under the command of Lt. Col. Francis Smith advanced to Concord. There, colonists from Concord and surrounding towns repulsed a British detachment at the Old North Bridge, subsequently, militia arriving from across the region harried the British troops on their return to Boston, culminating in the Siege of Boston and outbreak of the war. The battle was publicized by the colonists as an example of British brutality and aggression. A century later, however, the conflict was remembered proudly by Americans, taking on a patriotic, almost mythic status in works like the Concord Hymn and Paul Reveres Ride. In April 1975, the town hosted a celebration of the battle. Concord has a rich literary history centered in the mid-nineteenth century around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson was at the center of a group of like-minded Transcendentalists living in Concord, among them were the author Nathaniel Hawthorne and the philosopher Bronson Alcott, the father of Louisa May Alcott. A native Concordian, Henry David Thoreau, was another member of Emersons circle
2.
Harvard University
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Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
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Tufts University
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Tufts University is a private research university incorporated in the municipality of Medford, Massachusetts, United States. Tufts College was founded in 1852 by Christian Universalists who worked for years to open a nonsectarian institution of higher learning, Charles Tufts donated the land for the campus on Walnut Hill, the highest point in Medford, saying that he wanted to set a light on the hill. The name was changed to Tufts University in 1954, although the name remains the Trustees of Tufts College. For more than a century, Tufts was a small New England liberal arts college, the university is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate degree programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in the Boston metropolitan area and the French Alps. The university emphasizes active citizenship and public service in all of its disciplines and is known for its internationalism, among its schools is the United States oldest graduate school of international relations, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The School of the Museum of Fine Arts offers art programs affiliated with a major museum, the university maintains a campus in Downtown Boston which houses the medical, dental, and nutrition schools, affiliated with several medical centers in the area. Some of its programs have affiliations with the institutions of Harvard University. Tufts is a member of and athletically competes in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. Tufts accepted 14% of undergraduate applicants to the Class of 2020 from a pool of 20,223 and it is consistently ranked by U. S. News & World Report and Forbes as one of the top schools in the United States. In the 1840s, the Universalist Church wanted to open a college in New England and his 20-acre donation is still at the heart of Tufts now 150 acre campus, straddling Somerville and Medford. During his tenure, Ballou spent a year travelling and studying in the United Kingdom, the methods of instruction which he initiated were based on the tutorials that were conducted in the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh. Now more than 160 years old, Tufts is the third oldest college in the Boston area and that building now bears Ballous name. The campus opened in August 1854, President Ballou died in 1861 and was succeeded by Alonzo Ames Miner. Though not a graduate, his presidency was marked by several advances. These include the establishment of schools for Tufts which include Goddard Seminary, Westbrook Seminary. During the Civil War the college supported the Union cause. The mansion of Major George L. Stearns which stood on part of the campus was a station on the Underground Railroad, in addition to having the largest classes spring up,63 graduates served in the Union army. The first course of a program leading to a degree in civil engineering was established in 1865
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Pulitzer Prize for History
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The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a book about the history of the United States. Thus it is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, the Pulitzer Prize program has also recognized some historical work with its Biography prize, from 1917, and its General Non-Fiction prize, from 1952. Finalists have been announced from 1980, ordinarily two others beside the winner, in its first 97 years to 2013, the History Pulitzer was awarded 95 times. Two prizes were given in 1989, none in 1919,1984, four people have won two each, Margaret Leech, Bernard Bailyn, Paul Horgan and Alan Taylor. 1980, Been in the Storm So Long by Leon F. Litwack The Plains Across by John B. Unruh The Urban Crucible by Gary B, media related to Pulitzer Prize for History winners at Wikimedia Commons
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National Humanities Medal
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The annual Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities was established in 1988 and succeeded by the National Humanities Medal in 1997. The initial design for the National Humanities Medal was created by a 1995 Frankel Prize winner, David Macaulay, in June 2013, the agency announced that a design by Paul C. Balan of Illinois had been selected as the winner, the final medal will be unveiled in Washington D. C. in November 2013. The new design was used for the first time for the 2013 National Humanities Medals, Medals are conferred once annually, usually by the U. S. President, to as many as twelve living candidates and existing organizations nominated early in the calendar year. The President selects the winners in consultation with the National Endowment for the Humanities, NEH asks that nominators consult the list of previous winners and consider the National Medal of Arts to recognize contributions in the creative or performing arts. Medalists are listed by year, then alphabetically, wood, historian 2009 Robert Caro Annette Gordon-Reed David Levering Lewis William H. McNeill Philippe de Montebello Albert H. Knox David Van Tassel Ethyle R. Wolfe 1989 Patricia L. Bates Daniel Boorstin Willard L. Boyd Clay Jenkinson Américo Paredes
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History
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History is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory and it is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians and their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In Asia, a chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts survived. Ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have evolved over the centuries, the modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematical elements of historical investigation. Often history is taught as part of primary and secondary education, the word history comes ultimately from Ancient Greek ἱστορία, meaning inquiry, knowledge from inquiry, or judge. It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his Περὶ Τὰ Ζῷα Ἱστορίαι, the ancestor word ἵστωρ is attested early on in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian ephebes oath, and in Boiotic inscriptions. History was borrowed from Latin into Old English as stær, and it was from Anglo-Norman that history was borrowed into Middle English, and this time the loan stuck. In Middle English, the meaning of history was story in general, the restriction to the meaning the branch of knowledge that deals with past events, the formal record or study of past events, esp. human affairs arose in the mid-fifteenth century. With the Renaissance, older senses of the word were revived, and it was in the Greek sense that Francis Bacon used the term in the sixteenth century. For him, historia was the knowledge of objects determined by space and time, in an expression of the linguistic synthetic vs. analytic/isolating dichotomy, English like Chinese now designates separate words for human history and storytelling in general. In modern German, French, and most Germanic and Romance languages, which are synthetic and highly inflected. The adjective historical is attested from 1661, and historic from 1669, Historian in the sense of a researcher of history is attested from 1531. Historians write in the context of their own time, and with due regard to the current dominant ideas of how to interpret the past, in the words of Benedetto Croce, All history is contemporary history. History is facilitated by the formation of a discourse of past through the production of narrative. The modern discipline of history is dedicated to the production of this discourse. All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form constitute the historical record, the task of historical discourse is to identify the sources which can most usefully contribute to the production of accurate accounts of past. Therefore, the constitution of the archive is a result of circumscribing a more general archive by invalidating the usage of certain texts and documents
7.
College of William & Mary
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The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. William & Mary educated U. S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, a young George Washington also received his surveyors license through the College. W&M students founded the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society in 1776, the establishment of graduate programs in law and medicine in 1779 makes it one of the first universities in the United States. In addition to its program, W&M is home to several graduate programs. Named in honor of the reigning monarchs King William III and Queen Mary II, the original plans for the College date back to 1618 but were thwarted by the Indian Massacre of 1622, a change in government, events related to the English Civil War, and Bacons Rebellion. In 1695 before the town of Williamsburg existed, construction began on the College Building, now known as the Sir Christopher Wren Building and it is the oldest college building in America. The College is one of the countrys nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution, the Charter named James Blair as the Colleges first president. William & Mary was founded as an Anglican institution, students were required to be members of the Church of England, and professors were required to declare adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles. In 1693, the College was given a seat in the House of Burgesses and it was determined the College would be supported by taxes and export duties on furs. The College acquired a 330 acres parcel for the new school,8 miles from Jamestown, in 1694, the new school opened in temporary buildings. Williamsburg was granted a charter as a city in 1722 by the Crown. During this time, the College served as a law center and it educated future U. S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler. The College has been called the Alma Mater of a Nation because of its ties to Americas founding fathers. A 17-year-old George Washington received his surveyors license through the College, William & Mary is famous for its firsts, the first U. S. institution with a Royal Charter, the first Greek-letter society, the first student honor code and the first law school in America. The College became a school in 1906 and became coeducational in 1918. In 1928, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. chose the College Building as the first building to be returned to its 18th-century appearance as part of the iconic Colonial Williamsburg restoration. During the period of the American Revolution, freedom of religion was established in Virginia notably with the 1786 passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, in 1779 the college became the first American university with the establishment of the graduate schools in law and medicine. The College of William and Mary is home to the nations first collegiate secret society, Society, popularly known as the Flat Hat Club, founded November 11,1750
8.
University of Michigan
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The University of Michigan, frequently referred to simply as Michigan, is a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817 in Detroit as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania,20 years before the Michigan Territory became a state, in 1821, the university was officially renamed the University of Michigan. It moved to Ann Arbor in 1837 onto 40 acres of what is now known as Central Campus, the University was a founding member of the Association of American Universities. Considered one of the foremost research universities in the United States, Michigans body of living alumni comprises more than 540,000 people, one of the largest alumni bases of any university in the world. Besides academic life, Michigans athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are known as the Wolverines. They are members of the Big Ten Conference, the University of Michigan was established in Detroit on August 26,1817 as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, by the governor and judges of Michigan Territory. Judge Augustus B. Woodward specifically invited The Rev. John Monteith and Father Gabriel Richard, Monteith became its first President and held seven of the professorships, and Richard was Vice President and held the other six professorships. Concurrently, Ann Arbor had set aside 40 acres in the hopes of being selected as the state capital, but when Lansing was chosen as the state capital, the city offered the land for a university. What would become the university moved to Ann Arbor in 1837 thanks to Governor Stevens T. Mason, the original 40 acres was the basis of the present Central Campus. The first classes in Ann Arbor were held in 1841, with six freshmen, eleven students graduated in the first commencement in 1845. By 1866, enrollment increased to 1,205 students, many of whom were Civil War veterans, Women were first admitted in 1870. U-M also became the first American university to use the method of study. Among the early students in the School of Medicine was Jose Celso Barbosa, who in 1880 graduated as valedictorian and he returned to Puerto Rico to practice medicine and also served in high-ranking posts in the government. In 1920 the university reorganized the College of Engineering and formed a committee of 100 industrialists to guide academic research initiatives. The university became a choice for bright Jewish students from New York in the 1920s and 1930s. Because of its standards, U-M gained the nickname Harvard of the West. During World War II, U-Ms research supported military efforts, such as U. S. Navy projects in proximity fuzes, PT boats, and radar jamming. After the war, enrollment expanded rapidly and by 1950, it reached 21,000, as the Cold War and the Space Race took hold, U-M received numerous government grants for strategic research and helped to develop peacetime uses for nuclear energy
