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Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution. -
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco is named ruler of Peru. -
The Chumash Revolt of 1824 begins on February 21st, 1824. It sees native American forces fight against Spanish and Mexican occupiers of the ancestral lands in what is now California. -
The State of Florida moves its capital city to Tallahassee from St. Augustin -
Lord Byron, the famed British poet, perishes in Greece at age 36. "not in combat, but of a fever caught in the unhealthy conditions at Missolonghi... exacerbated, it is generally agreed, by the over-zealous actions of his doctors, who bled him excessively." -
Ludvig van Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 premiers in Vienna, forever changing the path of music students trying to learn an instrument. -
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is established in Great Britain -
Queen Kamāmalu of Hawaii dies of measles while in the United Kingdom. -
King Kamehameha II of Hawaii dies of measles while visiting Great Britain, mere days after the death of the Queen. -
Charles X succeeds Louis XVIII for the French crown -
The Chi Phi (ΧΦ) fraternity is founded at Princeton University. -
Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden -
The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
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The term acid rain is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book Air and Rain
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The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution
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US Congress created the National Park Service
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Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
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The Apollo 8 picture of Earthrise
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US Environmental Protection Agency established
First Earth Day – April 22. Millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth Day. -
Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer entered into force
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The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. Countries commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide
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U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol
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U.S. announces it will cease participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation
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U.S. re-enters Paris Agreement.