Founded October 28, 1636, and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.

[13] While never formally affiliated with any denomination, Harvard trained Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in the 18th century.

Harvard alumni, faculty, and researchers include 188 living billionaires, eight U.S. presidents, 24 heads of state and 31 heads of government, founders of notable companies, Nobel laureates, Fields Medalists, members of Congress, MacArthur Fellows, Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Turing Award Recipients, Pulitzer Prize recipients, and Fulbright Scholars; by most metrics, Harvard University ranks among the top universities in the world in each of these categories.

[Notes 1] Harvard students and alumni have also collectively won 10 Academy Awards and 110 Olympic medals, including 46 gold.

In 1643, a Harvard publication defined the college's purpose: "[to] advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.

[27]: 1–4  Following the death of Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan in 1803 and that of Joseph Willard, Harvard's eleventh president, the following year, a struggle broke out over their replacements.

From 1869 to 1909, Charles William Eliot, Harvard University's 21st president, decreased the historically favored position of Christianity in the curriculum, opening it to student self-direction.

In the late 19th century, Harvard University's graduate schools began admitting women in small numbers.

[16] For the first few decades of the 20th century, the Harvard student body was predominantly "old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians," according to sociologist and author Jerome Karabel.

The university's enrollment also underwent substantial growth, a product of both the founding of new graduate academic programs and an expansion of the undergraduate college.

In 1945, under Conant's leadership, an influential 268-page report, General Education in a Free Society, was published by Harvard faculty, which remains one of the most important works in curriculum studies,[36] and women were first admitted to the medical school.

Following the end of World War II, for example, special exams were developed so veterans could be considered for admission.

[42] On July 1, 2018, Faust retired and joined the board of Goldman Sachs, and Lawrence Bacow became Harvard's 29th president.

The Yard houses several Harvard buildings, including four of the university's libraries, Houghton, Lamont, Pusey, and Widener.

Each house is a community of undergraduates, faculty deans, and resident tutors, with its own dining hall, library, and recreational facilities.

[52] Plans include new construction and renovation for the Business School, a hotel and conference center, graduate student housing, Harvard Stadium, and other athletics facilities.

[54] SEC is adjacent to the Enterprise Research Campus, the Business School, and Harvard Innovation Labs, and designed to encourage technology- and life science-focused startups and collaborations with mature companies.

Harvard owns Dumbarton Oaks, a research library in Washington, D.C., Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, Concord Field Station in Estabrook Woods in Concord, Massachusetts,[56] the Villa I Tatti research center in Florence, Italy,[57] and the Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece.

[5][6] During the recession of 2007–2009, it suffered significant losses that forced large budget cuts, in particular temporarily halting construction on the Allston Science Complex.

[69] Since the 1970s, several student-led campaigns have advocated divesting Harvard's endowment from controversial holdings, including investments in South Africa during apartheid, Sudan during the Darfur genocide, and tobacco, fossil fuel, and private prison industries.

[78] Harvard College, the four-year, full-time undergraduate program, has a liberal arts and sciences focus.

[85] In 2019, the medical school and its affiliates attracted $1.65 billion in competitive research grants from the National Institutes of Health, more than twice that of any other university.

The nation's oldest collection of maps, gazetteers, and atlases is stored in Pusey Library on Harvard Yard, which is open to the public.

[99] According to annual polls done by The Princeton Review, Harvard is consistently among the top two most commonly named dream colleges in the United States for both students and their parents[100][101][102][103] In 2019, Harvard's engineering school was ranked the third-best school in the world for engineering and technology by Times Higher Education.

[114] In men's ice hockey, Harvard maintains a historic rivalry with Cornell, which dates back to their first meeting in 1910.

[115] Since its founding nearly four centuries ago, Harvard alumni have distinguished themselves in academia, activism, arts, athletics, business, entrepreneurship, government, international affairs, journalism, media, music, non-profit organizations, politics, public policy, science, technology, writing, and other industries and fields.

[116][117][118][119][120][121] Harvard's reputation as a center of elite achievement or elitist privilege has made it a frequent literary and cinematic backdrop.