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John Muir was born
John Muir was the Sierra Club's first president. He was known sometimes as the "Father of our national parks." He significantly helped with the exploration of parks such as the Yosemite and the Sequoia. He added so much to the preservation of national parks that many say he should be the only Californian in the Hall of Fame. -
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Book discovering what life was like on the simple side. It aimed to help Thoreau discover self-reliance and independence. -
Yellowstone National Park Founded
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American Forestry Association Founded
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Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks Founded
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Sierra Club Founded
Environmental organization that was one of the largest preservation organizations in the world. It aimed to promote green living. -
Lacey Act
Conservation law in the US that prohibits the trade of illegal wildlife, plants, and fish. -
Beginning of the Golden Age of Conservation
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First National Wildlife Refuge Established
Pelican Island by President Theodore Roosevelt -
Audubon Society is Founded
The National Association of Audubon Societies is incorporated in New York State. William Dutcher is named first President. Guy Bradley, one of the first Audubon wardens, is murdered by game poachers in Florida. Audubon Society is aimed towards the protection of birds. -
US Forest Service Founded
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. Gifford Pinchot was the first United States Chief Forester in the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. -
Antiquities Act
The Antiquities Act is the first law to establish that archeological sites on public lands are important public resources. It obligates federal agencies that manage the public lands to preserve for present and future generations the historic, scientific, commemorative, and cultural values of the archaeological and historic sites and structures on these lands. It also authorizes the President to protect landmarks, structures, and objects of historic or scientific interest by designating them as N -
Aldo Peopold
Aldo Leopold is acknowledged by some as the father of wildlife conservation in this country. Throughout his life he played many roles: wildlife manager, hunter, husband, father, naturalist, wilderness advocate, poet, scientist, philosopher, and visionary. Yet he is best known as author of A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. -
U.S. National Park Service Founded
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Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the US and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion (the Aeolian processes) caused the phenomenon. -
Soil Conservation Service Founded
The Natural Resources Conservation Service, formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service, is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that provides technical assistance to farmers and other private landowners and managers -
Civilian Conservation Corps Founded
It was one of the first New Deal programs. It was a public works project intended to promote environmental conservation and to build good citizens through vigorous, disciplined outdoor labor. Close to the heart of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the CCC combined his interests in conservation and universal service for youth. He believed that this civilian “tree army” would relieve the rural unemployed and keep youth “off the city street corners.” -
Taylor Grazing Act
The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 (P.L. 73-482) is a United States federal law that provides for the regulation of grazing on the public lands (excluding Alaska) to improve rangeland conditions and regulate their use. -
Fish plus wildlife service founded
Mission Work with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. -
Silent Spring published by Rachel Carson
Silent Spring is an environmental science book written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962. The book documented the detrimental effects on the environment—particularly on birds—of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. -
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Clean Air Acts
The Clean Air Act is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. -
NEPA
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was one of the first laws ever written that establishes the broad national framework for protecting our environment. NEPA's basic policy is to assure that all branches of government give proper consideration to the environment prior to undertaking any major federal action that significantly affects the environment. -
Cuyahoga River Fire
An oil slick on the Cuyahoga River - polluted from decades of industrial waste - caught fire on a Sunday morning in June 1969 near the Republic Steel mill, causing about $100,000 worth of damage to two railroad bridges. Initially the fire drew little attention, either locally or nationally. The '69 fire was not even the first time that the river burned. Dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century, the river had caught fire on several other occasions. -
First Earth Day
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EPA founded
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Endangered Species Act
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OPEC Oil Embargo
The 1973 oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC, consisting of the Arab members of the OPEC plus Egypt, Syria) proclaimed an oil embargo. By the end of the embargo in March 1974,[1] the price of oil had risen from $3 per barrel to nearly $12. -
Roland and Molina (UCI) announce that CFC*s are depleting the ozone layer
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RCRA
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste. -
SMCRA
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) is the primary federal law that regulates the environmental effects of coal mining in the United States. SMCRA created two programs: one for regulating active coal mines and a second for reclaiming abandoned mine lands. -
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters by preventing point and nonpoint pollution sources, providing assistance to publicly owned treatment works for the improvement of wastewater treatment, and maintaining the integrity of wetlands. -
Love Canal
Love Canal is an aborted canal project branching off of the Niagara River about four miles south of Niagara Falls. It is also the name of a fifteen-acre, working-class neighborhood of around 800 single-family homes built directly adjacent to the canal. From 1942 to 1953, the Hooker Chemical Company, with government sanction, began using the partially dug canal as a chemical waste dump. -
3 Mile Island Nuclear Accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979, in one of the two Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. -
Bhopal, India
The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster.[1] It occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other chemicals. The toxic substance made its way into and around the shanty towns located near the plant, killing thousands. -
Chernobyl
The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. -
Montreal Protocol
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (a protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer) is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. -
Exxon Valdez
The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m.local time and spilled 11 to 38 million US gallons of crude oil over the next few days. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. -
Energy Policy Act
The Energy Policy Act is a United States government act. It was passed by Congress and set goals, created mandates, and amended utility laws to increase clean energy use and improve overall energy efficiency in the United States. -
Desert Protection Act
The California Desert Protection Act of 1994 is a federal law signed by President Bill Clinton, and passed by the United States Congress on October 8, 1994, that established the Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve in the California desert -
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Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty, which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, based on the premise that (a) global warming exists and (b) man-made CO2 emissions have caused it.
