-
Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
-
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration explains why the colonies should break away from Britain. -
Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden
-
The Civil War
The war was about slavery, but primarily about its economic consequences Slavery translated into money for the southern region. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. -
The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
-
The term acid rain is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book Air and Rain
-
The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution
-
World War I (WWI)
after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and lasted until 1918. -
US Congress created the National Park Service
-
The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending World War I.
and officially ended the war between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
DDay
the Allied Forces of Britain, America, Canada, and France attacked German forces on the coast of Normandy, France -
The Cold War
was a long period of tension between the democracies of the Western World and the communist countries of Eastern Europe. -
Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
-
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while traveling through Dallas, Texas. -
The Apollo 8 picture of Earthrise
-
Apollo 11
was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. -
Earth Day – April 22., millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth Day organized by Gaylord Nelson, former senator of Wisconsin, and Denis Hayes, Harvard graduate student. US Environmental Protection Agency established
-
Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer entered into force
-
The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases
-
U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol
-
September 11 attacks
al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners, intentionally crashing two into the World Trade Center in New York City. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
