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Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
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The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. -
This founding document, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government. -
The Whiskey Rebellion was a violent tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington, ultimately under the command of American Revolutionary War veteran Major James McFarlane. -
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from Napoleonic France in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi. -
The Battle of New Orleans was fought on January 8, 1815 between the British Army under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and the United States Army under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson, roughly 5 miles southeast of the French Quarter of New Orleans, in the current suburb of Chalmette, Louisiana. -
A principle of U.S policy, created by James Monroe in 1823. -
Jacksonian democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21, and restructured a number of federal institutions. ... Broadly speaking, the era was characterized by a democratic spirit. -
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, officially titled the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic. -
Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden
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Dred Scott v. Sandford, was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that the United States Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for people of African descent, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free, and so the rights and privileges that the Constitution confers upon American citizens could not apply to them. -
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. -
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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First Earth Day – April 22. Millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth Day. US Environmental Protection Agency established.
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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 that ratify this protocol 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. announces it will rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation.