FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries. The official theme for 2022 is Invest In Our Planet.

In 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace, to first be observed on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature’s equipoise was later sanctioned in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. A month later, United States Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the idea to hold a nationwide environmental teach-in on April 22, 1970. He hired a young activist, Denis Hayes, to be the National Coordinator. Nelson and Hayes renamed the event “Earth Day”. Denis and his staff grew the event beyond the original idea for a teach-in to include the entire United States. More than 20 million people poured out on the streets, and the first Earth Day remains the largest single-day protest in human history. Key non-environmentally focused partners played major roles. Under the leadership of labor leader Walter Reuther, for example, the United Auto Workers (UAW) was the most instrumental outside financial and operational supporter of the first Earth Day. According to Hayes, “Without the UAW, the first Earth Day would have likely flopped!” Nelson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in recognition of his work.

The first Earth Day was focused on the United States. In 1990, Denis Hayes, the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international and organized events in 141 nations. On Earth Day 2016, the landmark Paris Agreement was signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and 120 other countries. This signing satisfied a key requirement for the entry into force of the historic draft climate protection treaty adopted by consensus of the 195 nations present at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. Numerous communities engaged in Earth Day Week actions, an entire week of activities focused on the environmental issues that the world faces. On Earth Day 2020, over 100 million people around the world observed the 50th anniversary in what is being referred to as the largest online mass mobilization in history.

IN PAST HISTORY

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Jacques-Yves Cousteau, AC (/kuːˈstoʊ/, also UK: /ˈkuːstoʊ/, French: [ʒak iv kusto]; 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie Française.

Cousteau described his underwater world research in a series of books, perhaps the most successful being his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure, published in 1953. Cousteau also directed films, most notably The Silent World, the documentary adaptation of his book, which won a Palme d’Or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. He remained the only person to win a Palme d’Or for a documentary film until Michael Moore won the award in 2004 for Fahrenheit 9/11.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Earth Day

Earth Day is April 22 of every year. Back on April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans—10% of the U.S. population at the time—protested to bring attention to the very concerning environmental issues of the day, including oil spills, dangerous smog levels, and rivers that were so polluted that they literally caught fire. Today, Earth Day is one of the biggest civic and community event in the world and is celebrated through action to protect and restore the planet, from joining a park cleanup to joining a climate or carbon initiative to taking part in the world’s largest citizen science initiative. See more about Earth Day activities.

Question of the Day

In a math book talking about the Fibonacci sequence, it said that often the sequence works with certain things in nature. There was a picture of a pinecone in the book. Do pinecones have anything to do with the Fibonacci sequence?Fibonacci numbers are a series of numbers where each, after the second term, is the sum of the preceding two numbers (e.g., 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.). In the study of botany, these numbers have proved useful in describing the positioning of leaves around plant stems, the spiral patterns in sunflower heads, and the scales of pinecones, to name but a few.

Advice of the Day

Frequent mistings under the leaves of houseplants will discourage spider mites.

Home Hint of the Day

In praise of the drywall screw: It taps its own holes, neatly countersinks its own head, is made for power driving with a Phillips head in a drill, and its needle-sharp point even drills and taps right through thin metal.

Word of the Day

ScuttlebuttA report (often malicious) about the behavior of other people.

Puzzle of the Day

What washes up on very small beaches?Micro-waves!

Born

• Queen Isabella I of Spain – 1451
• Reverend Eleazar Wheelock (founded Dartmouth College) – 1711
• Julius Sterling Morton (Arbor Day founder) – 1832
• J. Robert Oppenheimer (physicist) – 1904
• Aaron Spelling (television producer) – 1923
• Charlotte Rae (actress) – 1926
• Glen Campbell (country musician) – 1936
• Jack Nicholson (actor) – 1937
• Peter Frampton (musician) – 1950
• Ryan Stiles (comedian & actor) – 1959

Died

• Ansel Adams (photographer) – 1984
• Richard M. Nixon (37th U.S. president) – 1994
• Erma Bombeck (humorist) – 1996
• Pat Tillman (Former NFL player, was killed while serving as an Army Rangers soldier in Afghanistan. Tillman walked away from a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the military after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S.) – 2004

Events

• U.S. Proclamation of Neutrality issued– 1793
• Sirius became first ship to complete trek across Atlantic solely by steam– 1838
• First White House Easter Egg Roll– 1878
• Every student in Nebraska City, Nebraska planted at least one tree in honor of the first official Arbor Day, which was founded by Julius Sterling Morton– 1885
• Oklahoma land rush began– 1899
• Symphony Society of N.Y. began first European tour by U.S. orchestra– 1920
• Ray Keech drove 207,552 mph in the White Triplex car– 1928
• Jacques Cousteau granted patent for diving apparatus– 1952
• Lester Pearson inaugurated as prime minister of Canada– 1963
• Doctors in Houston, Texas, performed the first substantial human eye transplant– 1969
• The first Earth Day was celebrated in the United States– 1970
• The Blues Brothers made their first appearance on Saturday Night Live– 1978
• In Washington, D.C., the Albert Einstein memorial was unveiled on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences– 1979
• The Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, D.C.– 1993
• Red Sox players Manny Ramirez, J. D. Drew, Mike Lowell, and Jason Varitek hit 4 consecutive home runs. This was a first in Red Sox history– 2007

Weather

• It rained geese in Elgin, Manitoba, after 52 flying geese were struck by lightning.– 1932
• Sixteen inches of snow fell in Sheridan, Wyoming– 1958
• The Red River crested at 54.35 feet in Grand Forks, North Dakota– 1997

COURTESY www.almanac.com