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Dec. 3, 1907:  In his annual Message to Congress – the predecessor of the State of the Union Address – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt says “We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so."

 

Dec. 3, 1984:  An accident at a Union Carbide chemical factory in Bhopal results in a massive release of the chemical methyl isocyanate. India’s Madhya Pradesh state government set the fatality level at 3,787 deaths related to the disaster, with tens of thousands more injured.  A global uproar resulted in calls for tougher safety standards for developing-nations factories. At right, a memorial in Bhopal.

 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

 

This feature is compiled by Peter Dykstra, an MNN contributor and publisher of Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate.