September 27, 1962: Rachel Carson publishes Silent
Spring, about the dangers of pesticides, helping to launch the modern environmental
movement. She knew whereof she spoke: Within 2 years, she was dead from cancer.
Born outside Pittsburgh in 1907, she began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. She won a National Book Award for The Sea Around Us in 1951, and wrote other bestsellers about ocean life. The decline of ocean life led her to write about pesticides, producing Silent Spring.
This was one of the earliest occurrences of the American public being aware of environmental dangers. Chemical companies were furious about being exposed; but then, villains usually are.
She died of breast cancer on April 14, 1964, only 56. In 1970, the federal government passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1972, the federal government banned Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, the pesticide known by its initials DDT. On an episode of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Judy Carne called it "the groovy pesticide that kills both sprayer and sprayee. I guess 'DDT' stands for 'Drop Dead Twice.'" In 1980, President Jimmy Carter awarded Dr. Carson a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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September 27, 1962 was a Thursday. The only scores on this historic day were 3 baseball games:
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Dennis Bennett pitched a 5-hit shutout. Clay Dalrymple hit a home run. Ernie Banks went 1-for-4.
* The Houston Colt .45s beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 8-6 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Sandy Koufax only pitched 5 innings. (The Colt .45s became the Astros in 1965.)
* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants, 7-4 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Stan Musial went 5-for-5, and Gene Oliver hit a home run off former Yankee World Series hero Don Larsen. Willie Mays went 1-for-4.
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