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Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
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Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden
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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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artificial satellite, Sputnik I is Launched into space by the Soviet Union
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Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin Orbited Earth in 108 minutes
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President Kennedy says that the well get on the moon and back
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Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
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John Glenn completes three orbits around Earth
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Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov does the first space walk
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The Apollo 8 picture of Earthrise
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Apollo 8 spacecraft orbits the moon for the first time
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Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin walk on the moon
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Earth Day – April 22., millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth Day organized by Gaylord Nelson, former senator of Wisconsin, and Denis Hayes, Harvard graduate student. US Environmental Protection Agency established
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Skylab I is launched in orbits around Earth
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Astronaut Bruce McCandless performs man's first untethered spacewalk
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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 and five other greenhouse gases
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Discovery becomes first shuttle to dock with the international space station,
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U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol