First "Earth Day"

In the United States, increasing environmental activism in the 1960s led to greater environmental consciousness, including the celebration of the first “Earth Day” on 22 April 1970. First envisioned by Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson as a national college teach-in on the environment, some twenty million Americans joined together in Central Park, New York City, and across the US, to call for a national day of the environment. Since 1990, the “Day of the Earth” is celebrated worldwide.