-
Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
-
Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden
-
Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown attempts to start a rebellion by taking over the Harpers Ferry arsenal. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
South Carolina could not tolerate a federal fort blocking an important sea port. -
First Battle of Bull Run
the northern press and public were eager for the Union Army to make an advance on Richmond ahead of the planned meeting of the Confederate Congress there on July 20. -
Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack
part of a Confederate effort to break the Union blockade of Southern ports, including Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia, that had been imposed at the start of the war. -
The Battle of Shiloh
the Confederate Army launched a surprise attack on Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant -
Antietam
The Maryland Campaign was Lee's first attempt to take the war North and it was McClellan who was tasked by President Abraham Lincoln with stopping him. -
Emancipation Proclamation
freed slaves only in Confederate states still at war with the Union on January 1, 1863 -
Gettysburg
The plan was to try and get some leverage in the North by forcing Northern politicians to stop prosecuting the war. -
Draft Riots
three days of rioting to protest drafting of soldiers to fight for the Union, leaves 1,000 people dead in New York City. -
The Battle of Atlanta
wanting to neutralize the important rail and supply hub, defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John B. Hood. -
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
-
US Congress created the National Park Service
-
Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
-
The Apollo 8 picture of Earthrise
-
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 Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. Countries commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide
-
U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol
-
U.S. announces it will cease participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation
-
U.S. announces it will rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation