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World Population Reaches 1 billion
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Establishment of National Forests
The founding of the Forest Service actually has its roots in the last quarter of the 19th century. The national forests (originally called forest reserves) began with the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, which allowed the president to establish forest reserves from timber-covered public domain land. -
Lacey Act
The Lacey Act is a 1900 United States law that bans trafficking in illegal wildlife. In 2008, the Act was amended to include plants and plant products such as timber and paper. This landmark legislation is the world's first ban on trade in illegally sourced wood products. -
Migratory Bird Act
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (MBTA), codified at 16 U.S.C. §§ 703–712 (although §709 is omitted), is a United States federal law, first enacted in 1916 to implement the convention for the protection of migratory birds between the United States and Great Britain (acting on behalf of Canada). -
Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act
The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act is a United States federal statute that protects two species of eagle. The bald eagle was chosen as a national emblem of the United States by the Continental Congress of 1782 and was given legal protection by the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 -
Public Health Service Act
The Public Health Service Act is a United States federal law enacted in 1944. The full act is captured under Title 42 of the United States Code (The Public Health and Welfare), Chapter 6A (Public Health Service). The act clearly established the federal government's quarantine authority for the first time. It gave the United States Public Health Service responsibility for preventing the introduction, transmission and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States. -
Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States, and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River. An average of one million people visit the park each year. Everglades is the third-largest national park in the contiguous United States after Death Valley and Yellowstone. -
World Population Reaches 3 billion
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Antarctic Treaty System
The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System, regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, Earth's only continent without a native human population. -
Silent Spring Published
Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. The book was published on 27 September 1962 and it documented the adverse effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. -
Clean Air Act
The Clean Air Act is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It is one of the United States' first and most influential modern environmental laws, and one of the most comprehensive air quality laws in the world. -
Wilderness Act
The Wilderness Act of 1964 was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected 9.1 million acres of federal land. -
DDT Banned
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochlorine, originally developed as an insecticide, and ultimately becoming infamous for its environmental impacts -
National Environmental Policy Act
The National Environmental Policy Act is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality. The law was enacted on January 1, 1970. -
First Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22. Worldwide, various events are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, Earth Day now includes events in more than 193 countries, which are now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network. -
EPA Formed
The Environmental Protection Agency is an independent agency of the United States federal government for environmental protection. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970 and it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. -
United Nations Environment Programme
The United Nations Environment Programme, an agency of the United Nations, coordinates the organization's environmental activities and assists developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. -
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Clean Water Act/Water Quality Act
The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Technically, the name of the law is the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The first FWPCA was enacted in 1948, but took on its modern form when completely rewritten in 1972 in an act entitled the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. Major changes have subsequently been introduced via amendatory legislation including the Clean Water Act of 1977 and the Water Quality Act of 1987. -
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the few dozens of US environmental laws passed in the 1970s, and serves as the enacting legislation to carry out the provisions outlined in The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. -
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OPEC Oil Embargo
Oil Embargo, 1973–1974. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military and to gain leverage in the post-war peace negotiations. -
The First World Food Summit
World Food Summits are convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The first food summit, the "World Food Conference", took place in Rome in 1974. -
World Environment Day
World Environment Day is celebrated on the 5th of June every year, and is the United Nation's principal vehicle for encouraging awareness and action for the protection of our environment. -
Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
CITES is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals. It was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The convention was opened for signature in 1973 and CITES entered into force on 1 July 1975. -
Toxic Substances Control Act
The Toxic Substances Control Act is a United States law, passed by the United States Congress in 1976 and administered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, that regulates the introduction of new or already existing chemicals. -
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, enacted in 1976, is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste. -
Alternative Energy Institute
Alternative Energy Institute was West Texas A&M University's alternative energy research branch. Formed in 1977, the program was nationally and internationally recognized, and along with research provides education and outreach around the U.S. and the globe. -
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Love Canal Disaster
Love Canal is a neighborhood within Niagara Falls, New York. The neighborhood is infamously known as the location of a 70-acre landfill which became the epicenter of a massive environmental pollution disaster harming the health of hundreds of residents, culminating in an extensive Superfund cleanup operation. -
Three Mile Island Accident
The Three Mile Island accident occurred on March 28, 1979, in reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. It was the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. -
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Union Carbide Plant Explosion
The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. It is considered to be the world's worst industrial disaster. -
Chernobyl Nuclear Explosion
The Chernobyl disaster, also referred to as the Chernobyl accident, was a catastrophic nuclear accident. It occurred on 25–26 April 1986 in the No. 4 light water graphite moderated reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the now-abandoned town of Pripyat, in northern Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, approximately 104 km (65 mi) north of Kiev. -
World Population Reached 5 billion
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Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, March 24, 1989, when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 1.5 miles west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 am local time and spilled 10.8 million US gallons (260,000 bbl)(or a mass of 35,000 metric tonnes) of crude oil over the next few days. -
Montreal Protocol
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete 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. -
Gulf War Oil Spill
The Gulf War oil spill was one of the largest oil spills in history, resulting from the Gulf War in 1991. The apparent strategic goal was to foil a potential landing by US Marines. It also made commandeering oil reserves dangerous for US forces as visibility and movement were inhibited. -
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First U.N. Earth Summit
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the Rio Summit, the Rio Conference, and the Earth Summit, was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14 June 1992. -
Food Quality Protection Act
The Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) was passed unanimously by Congress and then signed into law by President Clinton on August 3, 1996. The FQPA amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) and thus fundamentally changed EPA’s regulation of pesticides. -
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The Second World Food Summit
The Second World Food Summit took place in Rome, Italy between 13 and 17 November 1996. This resulted in the adoption of the Rome Declaration on World Food Security in which member states stated to "pledge our political will and our common and national commitment to achieving food security for all and to an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015." -
The Third World Food Summit
The Third World Food Summit took place in Rome In June 2002. The Member Nations adopted the Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later, calling for the establishment of an intergovernmental working group to prepare a set of guidelines on the implementation of the right to food. This resulted in the drafting of the Right to Food Guidelines. -
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and it is extremely likely that human-made CO2 emissions have predominantly caused it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There are currently 192 parties to the Protocol. -
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The Fourth World Summit
The Fourth World Summit (A.K.A The World Summit on Food Security) took place in Rome, Italy, between 16 and 18 November 2009. The decision to convene the summit was taken by the FAO Council, at the proposal of FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. Sixty Heads of State and Government attended the summit. Countries unanimously adopted a declaration pledging renewed commitment to eradicate hunger from the earth at the earliest possible date. -
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BP Oil Spill
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill/leak, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the Macondo blowout) is an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill. -
World Population Reached 7 billion