History of the United States II / Unit 15 USH2 2132 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Earth Day
The idea
On April twenty-second, nineteen seventy, over twenty million Americans rallied for the first Earth Day, the Yawp records. Afterward Nixon consolidated several environmental programmes under the new Environmental Protection Agency, the first agency charged with studying, regulating and spreading knowledge about the environment. More laws followed: the Clean Water Act of nineteen seventy-two, the Ocean Dumping Act the same year, the Safe Drinking Water Act of nineteen seventy-four and the Toxic Substances Control Act of nineteen seventy-six.
In practice
Crowds in city streets and parks on a spring day, and a Republican president signing environmental law.
Where people slip
Two facts sit uneasily together, and both are true. The environmental movement drew millions and passed its major laws under a Republican president, and the anchor, which mentions the Environmental Protection Agency only once, in a later chapter noting its weaker enforcement under Reagan, does not tell its founding. The course takes the founding from the Yawp. Theme four's thread, from the Dust Bowl of unit ten and the Tennessee Valley of unit eleven, runs through here.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
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