Environment

Fires were nothing out of the ordinary on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River in the 1960s. The city was still a manufacturing hub and the river, which empties into Lake Erie, had long been a dumping place for sewage and industrial waste. But on June 22, 1969, a spark flared from the ...read more

The Endangered Species Act was created by a somewhat unlikely hero: President Richard M. Nixon. Although Nixon expressed personal disgust with environmentalists in private, he also recognized that Americans’ interest in the environment was not a passing fad. Nixon used his ...read more

Mount St. Helens is a volcano located in southwestern Washington state. It’s the most active volcano in the Cascade Range, a mountain range that extends from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to northern California. For thousands of years, Mount St. Helens has ...read more

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a manmade disaster that occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company, spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. It was the worst oil spill in U.S. history until ...read more

Arbor Day—which literally translates to “tree” day from the Latin origin of the word arbor—is a holiday that celebrates the planting, upkeep and preservation of trees. For centuries, communities spanning the globe have found various ways to honor nature and the environment. ...read more

1. Anne Frank’s Chestnut Tree (Amsterdam, Netherlands) For the two years that Anne Frank remained hidden in the “secret annex” of her father’s workplace, a lone attic window offered her only glimpse of the outside world. The teenager often gazed out and took comfort in the ...read more