50 years ago, the EPA did not exist, which meant there was no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act, and no legal regulatory mechanism to protect our environment. This all changed in April 1970 when Senator Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day as a way to force this issue onto the national agenda. Twenty million Americans demonstrated in different U.S. cities, and it worked! In December 1970, Congress authorized the creation of a new federal agency to tackle environmental issues, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Now, each year on April 22, people all around the world come together on Earth Day to celebrate the planet's environment and raise public awareness about pollution.