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100
Agricultural Revolution
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Industrial Revolution
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John Muir (April 21, 1838)
John Muir was an engineer, naturalist, writer, botanist, and geologist. He is best known for being the founder of the Sierra club. -
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walden is an American book written by Henry David Thoreau. It's a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings.[ -
Homestead Act
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Yellowstone National Park founded
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American Forestry Association founded
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Yosemite plus Sequoia National Park founded
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Sierra Club Founded
The Sierra Club is one of the oldest and largest environmental organizations in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892 by the American conservationist and preservationist John Muir. -
Lacey Act founded
The Lacey Act is a conservation law in the United States that prohibits trade in wildlife, fish, and plants that have been illegally taken, possessed, transported or sold. It protects both plants and wildlife by making penalties for those who violate the rules and regulations. -
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Golden Age of conservation ( Theodore Roosevelt)
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First National Wild life Refuge established
President Theodore Roosevelt designated Florida's Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge as the first wildlife refuge in 1903,. The System has grown to over 560 national wildlife refuges. -
US Forest Service founded
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands. Major divisions of the agency include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, and the Research and Development branch. -
Gifford Pinchot
Pinchot is known for reforming the management and development of forests in the United States and for advocating the conservation of the nation's reserves by planned use and renewal. He called it "the art of producing from the forest whatever it can yield for the service of man." -
Aldo Leopold
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Audubon Society founded
The National Audubon Society is an American, non-profit, environmental organization dedicated to conservation. Incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world and uses science, education and grassroots advocacy to advance its conservation mission. -
Antiquities Act
The Antiquities Act of 1906 is an act passed by the United States Congress. This law gives the President of the United States the authority to, by executive order, restrict the use of particular public land owned by the federal government. -
US National Park Service founded
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Civilian Conservation Corps founded
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Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act
The Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act, which went into effect on July 1, 1934, authorized the annual issuance of what is popularly known as the Duck Stamp. In 1976, Congress changed the official name to the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp. -
Taylor Grazing Act
The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 was intended to "stop injury to the public grazing lands by preventing overgrazing and soil deterioration; to provide for their orderly use, improvement, and development; and to stabilize the livestock industry dependent upon the public range". This Act was pre-empted by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 -
Fish plus Wildlife Service founded
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is a federal government agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency reads as "working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people." -
Silent Spring published by Rachel Carson
Silent Spring is an environmental science book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962.The book documented the detrimental effects on the environment—particularly on birds—of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims unquestioningly. -
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. -
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was an outgrowth of the recommendations of a Presidential commission, the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC). Among other things, the commission recommended that the nation protect wild rivers and scenic rivers from development that would substantially change their wild or scenic nature. -
Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire
The Cuyahoga River is located in Northeast Ohio in the United States and feeds Lake Erie. The river is famous for being "the river that caught fire," helping to spur the environmental movement in the late 1960s. -
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that established a U.S. national policy promoting the enhancement of the environment and also established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). As one of the most emulated statutes in the world, NEPA has been called the modern-day equivalent of an “environmental Magna Carta”. -
First Earth Day
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Environmental Protection Agency established
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Clean Air Act established
The Clean Air Act is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and enforce regulations to protect the public from airborne contaminants known to be hazardous to human health. -
FIFRA –Federal, Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Control Act
The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is a United States federal law that set up the basic U.S. system of pesticide regulation to protect applicators, consumers, and the environment. It is administered and regulated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the appropriate environmental agencies of the respective states. -
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the few dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation." -
OPEC and Oil Embargo
OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is an international organization and economic cartel whose mission is to coordinate the policies of the oil-producing countries. The goal is to secure a steady income to the member states and to collude in influencing world oil prices through economic means. -
Roland and Molina (UCI) announce that CFC’s are depleting the ozone layer
CFCs and other contributory substances are referred to as ozone-depleting substances (ODS). Since the ozone layer prevents most harmful UVB wavelengths (280–315 nm) of ultraviolet light (UV light) from passing through the Earth's atmosphere, observed and projected decreases in ozone have generated worldwide concern leading to adoption of the Montreal Protocol that bans the production of CFCs, halons, and other ozone-depleting chemicals such as carbon tetrachloride and trichloroethane. -
RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act)
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste. Congress enacted RCRA to address the increasing problems the nation faced from its growing volume of municipal and industrial waste. RCRA amended the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965. -
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution.Passed in 1972, the objective of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act (CWA), is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters by preventing point and nonpoint pollution sources, providing assistance to publicly owned treatment works for the improvement of wastewater treatment, and maintaining the -
Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) is the primary federal law that regulates the environmental effects of coal mining in the United States.
SMCRA created two programs: one for regulating active coal mines and a second for reclaiming abandoned mine lands. -
Love canal, NY
Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the LaSalle section of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. -
Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979 in one of the two Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history -
Bhopal, Island
The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster. It occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. -
Chernobyl
The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, wh -
CERCLA (Superfund)
Superfund or Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) is a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances as well as broadly define "pollutants or contaminants". Superfund also gives authority to federal natural resource agencies, states and Native American tribes to recover natural resource damages caused by releases of hazardous substances, and it created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Re -
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. The treaty was opened for signature on September 16th, 1987, and entered into force on January 1st, 1989, followed by a first meeting in Helsinki, May 1989. -
Exxon Valdez
Oriental Nicety, formerly Exxon Valdez,Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, and Dong Fang Ocean was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska. On March 24, 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, and captained by Joseph Hazelwood and first mate James Kunkel[ -
Energy Policy Act
The Energy Policy Act is a United States government act. It was passed by Congress and set goals, created mandates, and amended utility laws to increase clean energy use and improve overall energy efficiency in the United States. -
Desert Protection Act
The California Desert Protection Act of 1994 is a federal law , signed by President Bill Clinton, and passed by the United States Congress on October 8, 1994. It established the Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve in the California desert. -
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Kyoto Protocol
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World population hits 6 billion
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IPCC Report on climate Change
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Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
