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Lydia Taft, recent widow of Josiah Taft, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, is allowed to vote as Josiah’s proxy at a town meeting. Lydia is the first white woman to vote in what was to become the United States. (Women in many Native American tribes were leaders and influenced decisions long before Europeans arrived.) -
Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
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The New Jersey constitution of 1776 is adopted. It allows all residents who own a specific amount of property to vote, without reference to gender or race. Thus, unmarried or widowed women (Black and white) and Black men could vote if they met the other requirements. Married women could not vote because legally they could not own property (all of their property reverted to their husbands upon marriage). -
Kentucky passes a statewide woman suffrage law that grants the vote to female heads of household in elections deciding on taxes and schools. -
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and other women are excluded from the 1840 World Antislavery Congress in London. Permitted to attend as spectators, they are not allowed to take part. In response, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott resolve to “form a society to advocate the rights of women.” -
A Women’s Rights Convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. Three hundred attend the convention organized in part by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Frederick Douglass is one of those present. One hundred of the attendees sign the Declaration of Sentiments, which includes a call for women’s access to the vote. -
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 Eleventh National Women’s Rights Convention is held in New York City. Black and white attendees form the American Equal Rights Association to argue for universal suffrage: access to the ballot “irrespective of race, color, or sex.” -
The New England Woman Suffrage Association is founded, with Julia Ward Howe (composer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic) as president. Lucy Stone serves on the executive committee, and later becomes president of the organization. -
The American Equal Rights Association undergoes a painful split at their annual meeting. Attendees include Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. At the meeting, Frederick Douglass argues that Black men’s right to vote should take precedence over women’s right to vote. one states that “woman suffrage is more imperative than his own.” -
Victoria Woodhull testifies to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives (the first woman to address a House committee). She argues that the Fourteenth Amendment grants women the right to vote. The committee disagrees. -
The term acid rain is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book Air and Rain
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In St. Louis, Missouri, Virginia Minor is not allowed to register to vote. She and her husband sue. The case is eventually decided by the US Supreme Court, who issue their decision in 1875. -
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