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Cloaca Maxima (big sewer) is built in Rome by Etruscan dynasty of Tarquins. As Rome grows, a networks of cloacae (sewers) and aquaducts are built.
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They don't have air and water pollution because they didn't know what pollution was.
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Parliament passes an act forbidding the throwing of filth and garbage into ditches, rivers and waters. City of Cambridge also passes the first urban sanitary laws in England
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Rapid industrialization in England leads to heavy deforestation and increasing substitution of coal for wood.
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Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
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Beginnings of first modern municipal sewers in London, but water supply is still frequently contaminated
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Smoke in Pittsburgh -- Pittsburgh official Presley Neville wrote "the general dissatisfaction which prevails and the frequent complaints which are exhibited, in consequence of the Coal Smoke from many buildings in the Borough, particularly from smithies and blacksmith shops..." The smoke affected the "comfort, health and... peace and harmony" of the new city.
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House of Commons Factory Commission
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Report of the Board of Health (focus: Cholera Outbreak)
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The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britian.
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Royal Commission on Employment of Children in the Mines
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American Public Health Association
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British Public Health Act
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Europe's last great cholera outbreak
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US Congress passes the Burton Act, making diversion of water for power supplies subordinate to preservation of Niagara falls.
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US Bureau of Labor issues a list of industrial poisons.
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PHS (Public Health Services) checks air pollution in cities in the eastern part of the US including New York where reports show that sunlight was being cut by 20 to 50 percent.
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A natural gas leak from oilfields near a school kill at least 295 students in New London, Texas. Because of this, regulations requiring natural gas suppliers to add odorants are adopted.
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The USA drops the first atomic bombs on the Japan
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The USA drops the first atomic bombs on the Japan
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Federal Water Pollution Control Act, also known as the clean water act was put into place
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Congress passes Air Pollution Control Act which eventually turns into the clean air act.
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Clean Air Act is passed
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Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act to be administered by EPA.
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Congress passed Hazardous Waste Transportation Act
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Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act passes US Congress, forbidding ocean dumping of plastic materials.
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International treaty bans all ocean dumping of wastes.
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United Nations report on climate change warns that global temperature rise might be as much as 2 degrees F in 35 years, recommends reducing CO2 emissions worldwide.
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UN Antarctica treaty prohibits mining, limits pollution and protects animal species
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One of the most serious US environmental disasters east of the Mississippi River (until 2008 and the TVA ash disaster).
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Tennessee -- Over a billion gallons of coal fly ash sludge spills out of a holding dam near Kinsport, TN
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National Coast Anti Pollution League is formed to stop oil drumming