When I was teaching at Oregon State College (now Oregon State University), I designed and taught my first course in the history of mathematics. I entitled the course Great Moments in Mathematics. The title was motivated by a sequence of musically illustrated lectures, entitled Great Moments in Music, given some years ago on radio by the illustrious musicologist Walter Damrosch.

My course consisted of 60 separate “great moments,” and each lecture was accompanied by an assortment of visual aids in the form of desk experiments, models, portraits, maps, overhead transparencies, and so forth. The course prospered very gratifyingly–to such an extent that I had to be moved into larger and larger lecture rooms.

In addition to regularly enrolled college students, many of the college's faculty attended. And whenever a scholar or group of scholars visited the college, the President of the college always advised them to attend one of my history lectures. It was in this way that, during an early lecture of the course devoted to various mathematical numeral systems, a small delegation of Chinese scholars, visiting many of the American colleges and universities along our west coast, passed through Corvallis and visited Oregon State College. Thus I was surprised one morning, shortly before starting my lecture, to see the delegation quietly enter and seat themselves in my lecture room.