This feature looks at the first time famous names or terms appeared in The Times. Have an idea for someone or something you would like to read about? Send a suggestion in the comments section.

The world was chock-full of man-made conflagrations in 1969 — the Vietnam War was at five alarms, the Soviet Union and China were exchanging fire over their border, Biafra was ablaze and Northern Ireland was going up in flames. For comic relief, the badly polluted Cuyahoga River ignited.

And then on one of the darkest days of the year, Dec. 21, came a headline in The Times about a theretofore unmentioned man-made disaster, one with the potential to make all those hot spots look like campfires in comparison — global warming.

Scientists Caution on Changes in Climate as Result of Pollution

The accompanying article, by United Press International, reported on a meeting of the American Geophysical Union at which J.O. Fletcher of the Rand Corporation warned that man had “only a few decades to solve the problem” of global warming caused by pollution.

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Eight years later, on June 3. 1977, there was a more insistent warning about global warming and the dangers of burning coal, from an adviser to President Jimmy Carter.

And less than two months after that, on July 25, 1977, an article about global warming made the front page for the first time, when a report to the National Academy of Sciences warned of “highly adverse consequences,” including rising sea levels, unless coal consumption was reduced.

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It’s still a burning issue in Washington, 37 years later.