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The first Earth Day in the U.S. was celebrated on April 22, 1970.
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Earth Day Network is the global coordinator for Earth Day.
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Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day in the United States. In recognition of his hard work, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award.
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Denis Hayes took Earth Day international in 1990. Today he says that it is the largest secular holiday in the world, one that is celebrated by more than one billion people worldwide.
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The first Earth Day celebration in the U.S. resulted in 20 million Americans participating in peaceful demonstrations to show their support for environmental reform.
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On the first Day in the U.S., 2,000 colleges and universities participated, along with 10,000 primary and secondary schools.
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On the first Earth Day in New York City, the mayor shut down Fifth Avenue for use on Earth Day, and allowed it to be celebrated in Central Park.
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Popular activities that people participate in on Earth Day include planting trees, collecting garbage, cleaning up the coral reefs, signing petitions, and planning for a better environment and better planet.
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In 2009, the United Nations renamed Earth Day as International Mother Earth Day.
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Some communities and schools choose to celebrate Earth Week, allowing for more time to make the earth the focus of teaching and study.
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More than 100 thousand people in China rode their bikes on Earth Day 2012. They did this to save fuel and to reduce the CO2 emissions from vehicles.
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In Afghanistan in 2011, the Earth Day Network planted 28 million trees on Earth Day.
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In Panama, in honor of Earth Day, they planted 100 species of endangered orchids to prevent their extinction.
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Earth Day is important to help raise awareness of the impact we have on the environment and what can be done about it. Some of the stats that are used to get the point of going green across include: Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to watch 3 hours of TV. It takes less energy (90% less) to recycle aluminum cans than to manufacture new ones. The average person tosses out about 4 pounds of garbage every day. The average person uses about 12 thousand gallons of water each year. Only 27% of newspapers in the U.S. are recycled. If they were all recycled it would save one quarter of a billion trees EVERY YEAR. Every year there are 14,000,000,000 pounds of garbage thrown into the oceans. The plastic garbage kills at least 1 million creatures in the ocean each year.
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More than 1 billion people were celebrating Earth Day by 2010, which was Earth Day's 40th anniversary. More than 180 countries celebrated, and Facebook has become a popular tool to spread the word.
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