Mar 19 2020Funds first meeting on artificial intelligence at Dartmouth, the first time the words artificial and intelligence appear together.
Jan 01 1959The Foundation receives a bequest of the Villa Serbelloni on Lake Como, Italy. The villa, set among 50 acres of park and gardens, becomes the Foundation's Bellagio Study and Conference Center, hosting international conferences and scholars in residence.
Jan 01 1958The Population Council receives the first of many grants, spanning 39 years and totaling more than $40 million.
Jan 01 1958Through the New School for Social Research, the Foundation grants $10,000 to writer and neighborhood activist Jane Jacobs for research into the relationship between function and design in urban environments. She receives another grant the following year for $8,000. The book resulting from that research, Jacobs’ masterpiece, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," is published in 1961.
Jan 01 1957The Foundation reestablishes relationships with former fellows now behind the iron curtain, awarding new fellowships and making grants in Poland for laboratory and library equipment.
Jan 01 1956“Corn production in Mexico has increased steadily since 1947,” reports Dr. J. George Harrar, the architect of the Rockefeller Foundation's agriculture program, later to become the Foundation president. “The country [has] been able to meet the demands of increasing population since 1947 without resorting to the importation of this basic food from abroad.” During this period, Mexico becomes a net exporter not only of corn, but of wheat and other cereals.
Jan 01 1955The government of India requests that the Foundation send a population advisory mission. The group recommends an approach that addresses maternal and child public health. A year later, India becomes the first nation to adopt an official family-planning program.
Jan 01 1954The Foundation supports the Growth of American Families project, the first of the national fertility studies now carried out every five years with US government support.
Jan 01 1954The mosquito carrying yellow fever is eradicated from 13 major Latin American countries as an outgrowth of Foundation methods developed in Brazil in the 1930s.
Jan 01 1954The Foundation begins a program of institutional support in the arts. Grants help found the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut, and support drama and other arts at Karamu House in Cleveland, one of the nation’s leading interracial centers for drama and other arts.
