In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, a sophomore watches as the USSR invades Czechoslovakia, a junior unseats a 15-time golf champion, and more.
August 19, 1887—Princeton professor Charles Augustus Young is leading an expedition to Moscow to view a total solar eclipse.
August 20, 1968—Stephen Fuzesi ’70 watches from the balcony of the Hotel Intertourist in Uzsgorod, stunned, as Soviet tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring.” Fuzesi will later write, “The realistic Czechs were now victims of an innocent but naïve interpretation of their own fate. However, we were naïve all over the world.”
August 23, 1958—The Winnipeg Tribune reports that a group of tourists, four young men from Princeton and Yale, have arrived in the Port of Churchill by canoeing from The Pas.
August 25, 1996—Mary Moan ’97 wins the Pennsylvania State Women’s Amateur Championship, beating former U.S. Women’s and British Amateur Open winner Carol Semple-Thompson for the title in a stunning upset. (Thompson has previously won the Pennsylvania competition 15 times.)
Mary Moan ’97. Undergraduate Alumni Files (AC198).
For the previous installment in this series, click here.
Fact check: We always strive for accuracy, but if you believe you see an error, please contact us.
