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On this day in 1960, US President Dwight Eisenhower signs a bill authorizing a two-year Public Health Service study of air pollution from cars.

Virginia tire fire Seven million tires catch fire on this day in 1983 in a rural town upwind of Washington DC. The incident changed recycling laws.

LA’s first smog episode occurs on this day in 1943. At the time, air pollution was well known in US and European cities with heavy industries fueled by coal, but it was surprising that cities like Los Angeles had high levels of air pollution from automobiles and oil refineries. Over the next decade, as Los Angeles began struggling with frequent smog problems, protests emerged. In this photo from Oct. 15, 1954, members of the LA suburban Highland Park Optimist Club wear gas masks at their lunch meeting to protest Southern California’s eighth straight day of severe smog. The sign in background reads: “Why wait till 1955? We might not even be alive.” It referred to assertions by then-governor Goodwin Knight that the smog problem would be solved in 1955. For more on the LA smog problem, see Wikipedia’s History of Smog, and Science History’s “Fighting Smog in Los Angeles.

Smog settlement On this day in 1951, American Steel and Wire Co. settles the Donora, Pennsylvania smog disaster suits for a reported $235,000. Some 130 suits seeking $4,643,000 were filed as a result of the 1948 disaster in which 20 persons died and 5,190 were made ill.

Municipal housekeeping, 1947 The New York Times tells people there will be a “smoke abatement” (air pollution) rally coming up and says on this day in 1947: “We urge housewives and others to become better informed on the problem.” The gender connection to municipal housekeeping is an old idea in US environmental history and owes much to the insights of Carolyn Merchant. It’s interesting that the link to the women’s Progressive reform movement seems to have broken around this time, and the next year, when Smoke Abatement Week is declared by New York mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, women’s roles in the event are not apparent.

Killer smog On this day in 1950, a killer smog incident leaves 22 dead, hundreds hospitalized in Poza Rico, Mexico, near Veracruz. The killer smog was caused by gas fumes from an oil refinery.

Clean Air Act of 1990 signed by then-president George H.W. Bush. The new rules reduce acid rain emissions from coal-fired power plants and “air toxics” from octane boosting additives in gasoline such as benzene, toluene and xylene. New octane boosters such as MTBE and ethanol are now required in reformulated gasoline.

The “big smoke” hits London On this day in 1952, a “proper pea-souper” paralyzes London with smog so thick that people could not see their own feet. Although similar killer fogs are common from coal burning in major cities like London, this one lasts five days and kills an estimated 4,000 to 12,000 people. Public concern leads to the UK’s Clean Air Act of 1956 which banned the use of soft high-sulfur coal for home heating. It also marks the beginning of a new phase in public health and environmental awareness. In the US, similar smog episodes in the 1940s and 50s, in Donora PA (near Pittsburgh) New York and Los Angeles, begin to have the same political effect.

Emissions trading The US EPA issues rules authorizing pollution credits for sulfur and nitrogen emissions on this day in 1991. Emissions trading is new — before this, all polluters had to reduce pollution across the board, and according to Republicans, this created problems in the market. So a Republican-suggested method for controlling acid rain emissions was adopted and it worked.

On this same day In 2007 a bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade system passes out of committee in the U.S. Senate. Sponsored by Republican John Warner of Virginia and Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the measure gets strong Democratic support, but fails to get the needed 60 votes to avoid filibuster. Senators Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Larry Craig of Idaho offer 150 amendments to the bill in order to sidetrack it. In 2010 Congress would reject a similar plan for carbon emissions called “cap and trade.”

Donora smog disaster kills at least 20 and leaves 6,000 ill on this Halloween weekend in 1948. While many other towns near Pittsburgh, PA generated smoke and smog, the combination of a weather inversion and heavy production at the zinc wire plant contributed to very serious conditions in Donora. At the height of the smog incident, doctors and nurses were going door to door and finding people on their floors, gasping for breath. The local board of health orders the zinc works closed, but they take two days to do so. Dr. William Rongaus told the New York Times: “It’s murder. There’s nothing else you can call it.” The Donora disaster was studied by a British commission but utterly ignored, leading to the tragedy of the December 1952 Great Smog of London in which 4,000 people died.