Development of Environmental Organizations and Parks
United States Department of Agriculture
1862
Yellowstone Park established
1872
Sequoia National Park established
1890
Mount Rainier Forest Reserve
1897
Grand Canyon Park established
1908
National Audubon Society founded
1912
National Park Service founded
1916
National Parks and Conservation Association founded
1919
The Wilderness Society started
1935
The Nature Conservancy founded
1951
World Wide Fund for Nature founded
1961
Redwood National Park
1968
Rain forest Action Network founded
1985
Environmental Working Group founded
1992
National Environmental Trust founded
1995
USDA creates National Organic Program
2002
Environmental Disasters and Major Events
Giant Sequoia cut down in CA
1853
Second Industrial Revolution
1870 - 1914
Gifford Pinchot becomes the head of the Division of Forestry
1898
First national conference on industrial diseases held in Chicago
1910
Dam in Yosemite National Park completed
1923
100+ wildlife sanctuaries put under federal protection
1929
First of Dust Bowl storms
1933
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1945
U.S. ran first underground nuclear test
1957
The Cuyahoga River fire
1969
Chernobyl nuclear disaster
1986
Sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. coal plants reach 28 million tons
1990
Half of the world's rain forests destroyed
1990
Largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry occurs in Gulf
2010
7 Billionth person born
2011
Fukushima nuclear power complex meltdowns
2011
Tornadoes in the U.S. set a new record: 811
2013
Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan
2013
Environmental Acts and Legislation
Chicago is the first U.S. city to create a local ordinance regulating smoke discharges
1881
The Wilderness Act passes
1964
Solid Waste Disposal Act
1965
Reorganization Plan No. 3 (Birth of the EPA)
1970
National Environmental Policy Act
1970
Marine Mammal Protection Act
1972
Endangered Species Act
1973
Safe Drinking Water Act
1974
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
1976
Ocean Dumping Ban Act
1988
U.S. refuses to sign the Convention on Biological Diversity
1992
Kyoto Protocol drawn up
1997
Clinton declares 58 million acres off-limits to logging
2000
President Bush rejects the Kyoto Protocol
2001
CA enacts first cap on greenhouse gas emissions
2006
Major Publications and Reports
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
1854
John Muir starts publications about the Sierra Nevada
1872
The History of Standard Oil by Ida Tarbell
1904
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
1962
Joe Farman publishes discovery of ozone hole over Antarctica
1985
An Inconvenient Truth (documentary about Al Gore and global warming)
2006
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
2014