The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, to promote awareness of the planet's health, ecology, and the need for the adoption of antipollution measures.
Much of the social and political unrest that defined the 1960s was carried into the 1970s. The government's continuance of the war in Vietnam and neighboring territories was tearing America apart. The military draft and draft evasion had created a generation of young men alienated from family or countrymen by their commitment to either choice. When Daniel Ellsberg of the State Department leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers - the 7,000-page history of US politico-military involvement in the war in Vietnam from 1945-1967 - to the 'New York Times' in early 1971, he hoped their publication would expose alleged unconstitutional acts by many administrations and force an end to the war. Instead it brought on a war of litigation over First Amendment rights between the newspapers and the United States of America. The US Supreme Court finally upheld the freedom of the press but the war in Vietnam continued. Over 58,000 servicemen and women would ultimately lose their lives.
It was two more years before the Paris peace pacts of January 1973 extricated the United States. It would then have to watch as totalitarian regimes consumed much of Southeast Asia; wrought more death and terror; and unleashed a tide of refugees onto the world. As a result of the controversial war, the military draft in the United States was abandoned on January 27, 1973. And although 590 US prisoners were released by the North Vietnamese on April 1 of that year, the unknown fate of other US servicemen (MIAs and POWs) became a new point of contention between US families and the US government.
