Timeline: Environmental events

From Environmental Technology

Contents 1 Early events 2 18th Century 3 19th Century 4 20th Century 5 21st Century

This article covers the events concerning the environment. These include events like laws, environmentalists, publications, organizations, etc.

Early events

• 1306- Edward I forbids coal burning in London when Parliament is in session. Like many attempts to regulate coal burning, it has little effect.

• 1607 - Establishment of the first English colony at Jamestown. (now Virginia)

• 1760 - First experiments on use of coal-gas for lighting by coal mine owner George Dixon in Newcastle, England.

• 1762 --1769 -- Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution

18th Century

• 1700's - Many early American settlers had a frontier attitude, which is a desire to exploit the resources of North America as quickly as possible.

• 1709- First manufactoring of iron is performed when Abraham Darby of Coalbrookdale, England uses coal instead of wood.

• 1723- Lead in alcohol stills causes serious stomach pains, a commission of inquiry learns. The commission, based in Boston, investigates complaints about New England rum from consumers in North Carolina. "It poisoned their people, giving them the Dry Bellyache," Benjamin Franklin said of the incident in a 1767 letter to a friend who was investigating a similar incident in Devonshire.

19th Century

• 1803 -- Louisiana Purchase finalized April 30. France sold 828,000 square miles stretching from the mouth of the Mississippi River to Idaho.

• 1832-Arkansas Hot Springs established as a national reservation, setting a precedent for Yellowstone and eventually, a national park system.

• 1832-George Catlin, proposes the idea of national parks encomassing major areas in which Indians and wild country could both be preserved.

• 1845-Beginning of the Irish Famine

• 1860 - Alabama doctor Nicholas T. Sorsby writes Horizontal Plowing and hillside Ditching, the first book devoted to erosion control through improved cultivation methods.

• 1891-General Revision Act passed

20th Century

• 1940- US Congress passes Bald Eagle Preservation Act.

• 1967 - The Torry Canyon oil tanker runs aground and spills 117,000 tons of oil into North Sea near Cornwall, and United Kingdom

• 1968 - Paul Ehrlich publishes The Population Bomb, which describes the threats of the rapidly growing human population.

• 1970 - Earth Day is founded by Denis Hays, and Gaylord Nelson

• 1990 Congress amends the Clean Air Act to require further reductions in HC,CO,NOx, and particulate emissions.

• 1990 - Pollution Prevention Act passed

21st Century

• 2000- European Union bans leaded gasoline as a public health hazard.