what was the purpose of the first earth day event on april 22nd 1970
Earth Day In 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace, to first be celebrated on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. A month later a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. Nelson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in recognition of his work.[6] While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations.[7][8]
International Women's Day In August 1910, an International Socialist Women's Conference was organized to precede the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark.[11] Inspired in part by the American socialists, German Socialist Luise Zietz proposed the establishment of an annual Women's Day and was seconded by fellow socialist and later communist leader Clara Zetkin, supported by Käte Duncker, although no date was specified at that conference.[12][13] Delegates (100 women from 17 countries) agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights including suffrage for women.[14] The following year on March 19, 1911, IWD was marked for the first time, by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.[6] In the Austro-Hungarian Empire alone, there were 300 demonstrations.[12] In Vienna, women paraded on the Ringstrasse and carried banners honouring the martyrs of the Paris Commune.[12] Women demanded that they be given the right to vote and to hold public office. They also protested against employment sex discrimination.[3] The Americans continued to celebrate National Women's Day on the last Sunday in February.[12]