Gaylord Nelson

Gaylord Nelson, a trend-setting environmentalist who as a Democratic U.S. senator from Wisconsin founded Earth Day in 1970, died Sunday. He was 89. Nelson, who was also a former Wisconsin governor, died of cardiovascular failure at his home in Kensington, Md., a suburb of Washington, according to his biographer Bill Christofferson. In 1995, President Clinton awarded Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian honor.