Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundson reaches the South Pole on 14 December 1911, making him the first person to set foot there.
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Paul Sarasin delivers his address “Über die Aufgaben des Weltnaturschutzes” (On Tasks of the World Nature Protection Movement).
In his 1901 book, American conservationist and nature writer John Muir promoted a transcendentalist idea of national parks as wild places of inspirational beauty.
The 1906 earthquake and subsequent fire is one of the deadliest natural disasters in US history.
German geologist Alfred Wegener theorizes continental drift.
The disaster affects Tokyo, Yokohama, and vast parts of the Japanese island of Honshu.
A period of drought in the American Great Plains, combined with unsustainable agricultural practices, turns the region into a “Dust Bowl.”
The outbreak of the Spanish Influenza kills more than twelve million people in India.
United States and Great Britain (on behalf of Canada) sign the Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds in 1916.
New Zealand’s deadliest earthquake causes the death of 258 people in the Hawke’s Bay region.