Forty-five years ago today, the United States celebrated Earth Day for the first time. While the country was already seeing increased concern about pollution and general environmental degradation, the rallies taking place on April 22, 1970, helped start the modern environmental protection movement.

Student activists, led by Denis Hayes, helped organize the rallies and events that would take place across the country. Their work most definitely paid off. More than 20 million Americans participated in Earth Day activities in large cities and small towns alike.

The awareness and concern for the environment brought on by public rallies and events helped pass major environmental protection measures in the 1970s, which included the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

While the environmental issues have evolved since the 1970s, concerns about climate change and other environmental issues makes public awareness and informational campaigns just as important today as they were then.

Looking for ways you can make an impact in protecting the environment? Visit this list of '50 Ways to Help the Planet.'

Learn more:
Meet the Organizers of the Very First Earth Day – Time Magazine
Earth Day Network
Earth Day and garden event calendar – Illinois Times

Bernard Alfred “Jack” Nitzsche was born in Chicago on April 22, 1937. Eventually moving to Los Angeles, Nitzsche began orchestrating and collaborating with legendary producer Phil Spector. Through that association, Nitzsche worked with the Rolling Stones, culminating with his choir arrangement on the massive hit “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Shortly after working with the Rolling Stones, Nitzsche joined forces with Neil Young, a collaboration that began years earlier when Young was with Buffalo Springfield. After a few years in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s without much success, Nitzsche scored a hit with Buffy Saint-Marie with “Up Where We Belong” from the movie “An Officer and A Gentleman,” for which he won an Oscar.

Learn more:
All Music: Jack Nitzsche
Jack Nitzsche – IMDB

In 1974, a group of third-grade students from Dennis School in Decatur came up with the idea of naming the monarch butterfly the official state insect in Illinois. The idea took hold, and the following year, legislators made the proposal official.

Monarch butterflies, recognizable by their orange and black shades, are attracted to prairies and grasslands due to the presence of milkweed, making Illinois a natural habitat for the insect. Females lay eggs on the milkweed, and the resulting caterpillar feeds on the plant until becoming a butterfly.

Unfortunately, the amount of milkweed found along edges of roadways and farm fields in Illinois has fallen nearly 60 percent since 1999. This drop in milkweed is thought to be caused by increased farming of open lands and a general decrease in the amount of open grassland areas. Mowing practices that eliminate the weed along roadways is also thought to be a factor. Scientists are still studying the problem and determining what steps can be taken to increase the butterfly population.

Monarch butterflies fly south for the winter, escaping the cold winter months and reaching as far south as Mexico City.

Learn more:
Illinois State Symbols and their history: Monarch Butterfly
Where did they go? Environmental threats shrink the number of Illinois' beloved state insect, the monarch butterfly – Illinois Issues

Known to many from his portrayal in the 1987 movie “The Untouchables,” Eliot Ness was born in Chicago on April 19, 1903. At the young age of 24, he joined the Bureau of Prohibition and began working on a team dedicated to investigating and bringing down mobster Al Capone.

The team would become known as “The Untouchables” after a Chicago Tribune reporter coined the phrase while writing a story about attempted bribes offered by Capone’s men to Eliot Ness. While Ness was not directly responsible for Capone’s imprisonment, he became a well-known figure in the fight against bootlegging and other criminal activity of the day.

Ness moved to Cleveland in the mid-1930’s, investigating 200 police officers and other local officials for the rampant corruption that had taken hold in the Ohio city. He also had a role in the dramatic drop in traffic fatalities after the city instituted his plan to update traffic laws and procedures.

While Ness’ legacy is often misrepresented due to exaggerations in the movie “The Untouchables,” he nonetheless played a vital role in combating criminal elements throughout his entire life. Many of his practices while investigating crimes were at the time revolutionary and are common practice today, including his use of ballistics tests, his push to install two-way radios in police cars and his overall view of drug and alcohol addictions as medical instead of societal problems.

Learn more:
Eliot Ness – Biography.com
The Untouchables – IMDb

Sixty years ago today, the first McDonald’s franchise restaurant opened on Lee Street in Des Plaines. Developed by architect Stanley Meston, the restaurant featured red and white tiles with the recognizable golden arches.

Ray Kroc, while visiting a restaurant in San Bernardino, Calif., on a sales trip, was fascinated by the operation of a fast-food style restaurant focusing on a few staple items.

Kroc took the business model of the California restaurant and turned it into an international success. After opening the first franchise store in 1955, franchises all over the country opened. By 1959, over 100 restaurants had opened and by 1967, McDonald’s was opening restaurants in Canada and Puerto Rico.

Today, McDonald’s is the world’s largest chain restaurant, operating 35,000 restaurants in over 115 countries. While the original restaurant in Des Plaines is no longer operational, the site now features the McDonald’s #1 Store Museum, a rebuilt replica of the original restaurant that started it all.

Learn more:
McDonald’s #1 Store Museum
McDonald’s Archives – Time.com
McDonald’s History
The Ray Kroc Story