What happened on every day in the history of conservation
It took an act of Congress and a Proclamation by President Ronald Reagan—but, on September 23, 1986, the United States got a national flower: the rose. Actually, the country got a “national floral emblem,” but let’s agree that a rose by whatever bureaucratic name we choose is still the national flower. It wasn’t […]
Read More →One of the triumphs at the beginning of the modern environmental movement was the establishment of Assateague Island National Seashore. The barriers islands of which Assateague is a part are so significant that in 1979 the United Nations designated the Assateague region as a World Biosphere Reserve (the Virginia Coast reserve). However, it took a […]
Read More →A lobbyist once told me that all things are like pancakes—they all have two sides. Today’s story is about a man who certainly had two sides, two very complex and very confusing sides. The man is Grey Owl, one of Canada’s earliest conservationists, and an imposter on a grand scale. So, let me first […]
Read More →When President Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he said to her, “So you are the lady who started all this.” When Senator Abraham Ribicoff met Rachel Carson just before she gave testimony to his committee, he said the same to her. Ribicoff was wholly correct—Rachel Carson had started what […]
Read More →At the time it happened, the Johnstown Flood was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. It was the biggest news story since the assassination of President Lincoln, 24 years earlier. And it is a lesson of tragic proportion that dams, which do much good, are also tremendously dangerous. The […]
Read More →Everglades National Park stands as one of North America’s great ecosystems and parks, taking its place on the podium alongside Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon. But the Everglades lacks the grandeur of those other parks—which makes its creation and existence so much more meaningful. The southern end of Florida is more water than land. […]
Read More →It is the machine that changed the world. It started mass manufacturing. It created a huge middle class. It gave good jobs to unskilled workers, and they created labor unions. It put average Americans on wheels. It was the Tin Lizzie. And after two decades of production, the last Model T—the 15th million one—rolled off […]
Read More →According to the website “On This Day,” April 30, 1864 is the date when the first fee for a hunting license was established by the State of New York. I’ve not been able to confirm that event, and usually I wouldn’t validate such a claim with a post if I couldn’t directly verify it from […]
Read More →In 1982, the International Theatre Institute, working through UNESCO, created International Dance Day, occurring on April 29 each year. The date recognizes the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre, the originator of modern ballet, who lived from 1727-1810. In support of each year’s recognition, a prominent representative of dance pens a message regarding the universality and […]
Read More →It took two days before the government of the Soviet Union admitted that something had happened to their nuclear power facilities at Chernobyl. They might never have admitted anything, if Scandinavian scientists hadn’t begun to detect increased levels of radiation in the air on Monday morning, April 28, 1986. What the Soviet Union had […]
Read More →