1769 — Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
1854 — Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden
1866 — The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
1872 — The term acid rain is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book Air and Rain
1905 — The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution
1916 — US Congress created the National Park Service
1957 Sputnik
1961 Gagarin, First Man
1962 — Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
First landing on mars
1968 — The Apollo 8 picture of Earthrise
1969 First man on the moon
1970 — First Earth Day – April 22. Millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth Day. US Environmental Protection Agency established
1971 first space station
1981 first reusable spacecraft
1989 — Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer entered into force
1990 first space telescope in orbit
1997 — The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. Countries commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide
2001 — U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol
2001 space tourist
2008 first private space program Spacex
2014 comet landing
2017 — U.S. announces it will cease participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation
2021 — U.S. announces it will rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation
