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Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution. -
Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden -
The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel -
The term acid rain is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book Air and Rain -
The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution -
US Congress created the National Park Service -
The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
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Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring -
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
The Apollo 8 picture of Earthrise -
This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959. The United States' Apollo 11 was the first crewed mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. -
First Earth Day – April 22. Millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth Day. US Environmental Protection Agency established -
Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer entered into force -
The Gulf War was an armed conflict between Iraq and a 38-country military coalition. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases.
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The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. Countries commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide -
U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol -
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamist extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States on September 11, 2001. -
The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 that began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
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The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The person who won was Barack Obama -
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian-born Islamist militant who was the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization al-Qaeda. -
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people. -
U.S. announces it will cease participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation -
On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff. -
U.S. announces it will rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation