## On This Day ...

Important events from the history of math that happened on this day:

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## November 27th

1727 Isaac Greenwood began his "private" lectures as Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard. These lectures were given to selected students and required parental permission, probably to insure payment of the attendance fee of forty shillings. More information about: Isaac Greenwood Hollis Professorship Abraham de Moivre died in London, England, at the age of 87. It was said that he succumbed to lethargy. He was sleeping twenty hours a day, and it became a joke that he slept a quarter of an hour more every day and would die when he slept the whole day through. More information about: Abraham de Moivre Johns Hopkins University offered J. J. Sylvester $5000 a year plus moving expenses to assume the math professorship. He set three conditions under which he would accept: The sum be paid in gold, the university provide a residence, and that he be allowed to appropriate student fees. Only the first was acceptable to the university, but Sylvester agreed when the offer was increased to$6000 in gold. Shortly after arriving, he founded the American Journal of Mathematics. In 1883 he left to become Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford. More information about: James Joseph Sylvester