Earth Day was created due to an environment in crisis.
During the late 1960’s, there were oil spills, smog, and rivers so polluted they literally caught fire. The most famous river to catch fire was the Cuyahoga River in Ohio in June of 1969.
As a result of the environmental crisis, on April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans in hundreds of cities took to the streets and college campuses in protest of this environmental issue, demanding a new way for our planet to become cleaner. Hence the first Earth Day was created, and is now recognized as the planet’s largest civic event.