-
Period: to
Industrial Revolution
-
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin sets sail on the HMS Beagle, a voyage which inspires Darwin’s work on evolutionary theory, natural selection and the origin of species. -
charges against a coal
London officials bring nuisance charges against a coal - gas manufacturing firm that contaminated the Thames by releasing large amounts of coal tar from the plant. Although other indictments had been brought, Rex v. Medley was apparently the first to have been successfully prosecuted. -
epidemic kills 62,000 Britons
Cholera epidemic kills 62,000 Britons. The Times notes that the disease "is the best of all sanitary reformers -- it overlooks no mistake and pardons no oversight." (Markham). -
"Spoliation of Forests"
Washington Post reports in "Spoliation of Forests" that the Forestry Association has met regarding problems from logging after pressure from the public to preserve national forestlands. -
South Africa's Cape Colony
-South Africa's Cape Colony enacts Forest and Herbiage Protection Act allowing it to take over areas of veld and forest threatened with destruction. Similar laws are enacted in 1860 in the Dutch colony of Java; in 1865 in India; and in 1871 in Australia. -
Promoting solar energy
Promoting solar energy, Prof. Augustine Mouchot of Lycee de Tours, France, said: "One cannot help coming to the conclusion that it would be prudent and wise not to fall asleep regarding this quasi security. Eventually industry will no longer find in Europe the resources to satisfy its prodigious expansion Coal will undoubtedly be used up. What will industry do then?" Mouchot's answer was to build solar energy machines. In 1874 he built a collector with 54 square feet of reflecting surface for al -
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Founding of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals by Henry Bergh, but it was not the first. Other early U.S. humane societies include the Massachusetts SPCA, founded by George Angell in 1868; the San Francisco SPCA, founded in 1868; the Pennsylvania SPCA, founded in 1869; and the Women's Humane Society of Philadelphia, founded by Caroline Earle White in 1870, after women were excluded from the board of the Pennsylvania SPCA. Bergh, Angell, and White had all been anti-slav -
First coal mine safety laws
First coal mine safety laws passed in Pennsylvania following a fire that suffocated 179 men. -
first American city to create a local ordinance regulating smoke discharges
Chicago becomes the first American city to create a local ordinance regulating smoke discharges, followed that same year by Cincinnati. Pittsburgh's first smoke ordinance passed in 1892 and St. Louis created a smoke ordinance in 1893. The ordinances were extremely feeble, and as late as 1906, the Chicago Record-Herald noted sarcastically that a judge who normally handled smoke cases thought it to be "cruel and unusual punishment" if fines of $100 were handed out more than once or twice a year. -
Formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, in response to the prolific killing of birds by "sportsmen." Ironically, the RSPB itself now engages in the prolific killing of birds if they are judged to be alien threats to native species.
