For the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, The New York Times went big.

The paper covered the day’s events — rallies and teach-ins attended by millions — across the entire country, from New York to California. These days, that kind of wall-to-wall coverage would be called “flooding the zone.”

Two articles, one from New York, the other from Washington, made it onto Page One of the next day’s paper, with a top-of-the-page photo of crowds on a carless Fifth Avenue.

The Earth Day coverage continued for nearly two full pages inside. Yet for all the newsprint The Times devoted to the event, the accounts were mundane, weighed down by politicians’ speechifying and descriptions of community cleanups and other feel-good activities.