The completion of this infrastructure leads to lasting controversy over the severe deterioration in the flow of the Ganges and the decay of the river as an inland waterway.
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The introduction of rabbits to Australia led to significant loss of other species.
Guano, one of the main export goods in South America in the mid-nineteenth century, becomes a central cause of the Chincha Islands War.
A great drought and subsequent famine strikes Southern India from 1876–1878.
Increased European demand for rubber leads to the destruction of forests in West and Central Africa.
The eruption of this volcano kills over 150 people and transforms the landscape of New Zealand’s North Island.
Peru nationalizes its guano reserves, beginning a period historians refer to as “the guano age.”
The flood kills more than 2,200 people. In 1889 this was the greatest loss of civilian life in US history.
To protect the recently created Yosemite National Park against exploitation, John Muir founds the Sierra Club as the first grassroots environmental organization in the United States.
The landscape designers Vaux and Olmsted draft plans for New York City’s “Central Park,” a space in which to escape the city’s noise, pollution, and crowding.