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Philadelphia Water Commission.
Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution. -
Signing of the Declaration of Independence.
It was an official act taken by all 13 American colonies in declaring independence from British rule. -
Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden
The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance. -
American Civil War.
four-year war (1861–65) between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. It was the economics of slavery and political control of that system that was central to the conflict. -
Reconstruction and Industrialization.
Era in which the U.S. Government struggled to return the 11 southern states to the Union, rebuild the South's ruined economy, & promote the rights of former slaves. The Constitution provided no guidance on the secession or readmission of states. -
The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie.
Zoology, morphology, embryology, philosophy, medicine and marine biology were among his many interests. Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel even brought several terms into the vocabulary of science. Way back in 1866, he was the one to invent 'ecology' -
The term acid rain is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book Air and Rain
The phrase acid rain was first used in 1852 by Scottish chemist Robert Angus Smith during his investigation of rainwater chemistry near industrial cities in England and Scotland. The phenomenon became an important part of his book Air and Rain: The Beginnings of a Chemical Climatology -
The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution
The word “smog” was first used in 1905 by Dr. Henry Antoine Des Voeux at the Public Health Congress in London, England to describe “smoky fog”. Currently, it is widely used to represent air pollution. -
US Congress created the National Park Service.
Through the Yellowstone and other early park acts, Congress set the course for a rich American legacy. The Organic Act, enacted in 1916, secured this new conservation direction by creating a National Park Service (NPS) and National Park System with a resource protection goal. -
Women's Suffrage.
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. In the beginning of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote (leading to the 19th amendment). Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vote, increasing the number of those parties' potential constituencies. -
The Great Depression.
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn that affected many countries across the world. It became evident after a sharp decline in stock prices in the United States, leading to a period of economic depression. -
World War II.
Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II. The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China). -
The bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. Japan hoped for a short war, seeking to quickly weaken US naval strength and capture strategically vital oil supplies. -
Rachel Carson published Silent Spring
Rachel Carson's watershed work Silent Spring is first published on September 27, 1962. Originally serialized in The New Yorker magazine, the book shed light on the damage that man-made pesticides inflict on the environment. -
Assassination of JFK
John F. Kennedy was visiting a state that was vital to his reelection in 1964. The next day there, he took a ride in a motorcade, during, he was shot in the head and neck and later declared dead. Later capturing Oswald and holding him for his death. -
The Apollo 8 picture of Earthrise
On Christmas Eve, 1968 the crew of Apollo 8 captured a spectacular sight as they orbited the Moon: the illuminated Earth appearing above the barren lunar horizon. -
U.S. landing on the Moon.
Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon from Apollo 11. -
First Earth Day.
April 22. Millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth Day. US Environmental Protection Agency established -
Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer entered into force
The landmark agreement was signed in 1987 and entered into force in 1989. The parties to the Protocol meet once a year to make decisions aimed at ensuring the successful implementation of the agreement. These include adjusting or amending the Protocol, which has been done six times since its creation. -
The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. Countries commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide
The Protocol commits industrialized countries to limit and reduce GHG emissions by 5.2% below the 1990s base year level by 2008–12 in aggregate -
U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol
the U.S. formally rejected the Kyoto Protocol and looking back on Kyoto's track record that is a very good thing. Ultimately, 36 developed countries were legally bound to its GHG targets and 17 – nearly half – of them failed to meet their GHG targets. -
9/11 terrorist attacks
Four commercial aircrafts were hijacked and two of them crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington, D.C. The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed, due to the damage from the impacts and subsequent fires. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. -
U.S. announces it will cease participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation
US President Donald Trump announced that the United States would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation, contending that the agreement would "undermine" the U.S. economy, and put the U.S. "at a permanent disadvantage." -
U.S. announces it will rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation
President Biden signed an executive order to rejoin the Paris Agreement on January 20, 2021, his first day in office; the US rejoined on February 19, 2021.