On September 20, 2007, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) was officially launched .   SEAS emeritus Gordon McKay Professor of Systems Engineering and T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Applied Mathematics,  Yu-Chi Ho, wrote a blog entry about the history of Harvard engineering.  Interesting to we mechnicians is that the original benefactor Mr. Gordon McKay specified in his will that his huge furtune is to be used to support " mechanical engineering and related arts". As a result, the first strong group established was the applied mechanics group.

Prof. Ho's blog entry is available at:

http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=7579

You may also find some of his other entries informative and joyful.

Enjoy.