Today in History: More than 3,000 people were killed by a major eruption of Mount Vesuvius on this day in 1631.
Mount Vesuvius has erupted many times. Numerous others preceded the Pompeii eruption in AD 79 in prehistory, including at least three significantly larger; an example is the Avellino eruption around 1800 BC, which engulfed several Bronze Age settlements. Since AD 79, the volcano has also erupted repeatedly, in 172, 203, 222, possibly in 303, 379, 472, 512, 536, 685, 787, around 860, around 900, 968, 991, 999, 1006, 1037, 1049, around 1073, 1139, 1150, and there may have been eruptions in 1270, 1347, and 1500. The volcano erupted again in 1631, six times in the 18th century (including 1779 and 1794), eight times in the 19th century (notably in 1872), and in 1906, 1929 and 1944. There have been no eruptions since 1944, and none of the eruptions after AD 79 were as large or destructive as the Pompeian one.
Did you know that volcanic eruptions are one of of the leading causes of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere.
This Day in History: On this day (November 21) in 2016, a sudden powerful wind in Melbourne, Australia, resulted in the death of 10 asthmatic people who succumbed to respiratory failure. This was due to a stark 37 mph wind that distributed ryegrass pollen into the moist air, rupturing them into very fine specks, particles small enough to enter people's lungs.
This anomaly may not be the strangest weather event in history. Like something straight out of Charles Fort's "Book of the Damned" there have been throughout history instances of raining fish and frogs. In the first century AD, Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder documented storms of frogs and fish. In 1794, French soldiers saw toads fall from the sky during heavy rain at Lalain, near the French city of Lille. Rural inhabitants in Yoro, Honduras claim 'fish rain' happens there every summer, a phenomenon they call Lluvia de Peces.
On March 3, 1876, a meat shower occurred in Bath County, Kentucky, where what appeared to be chunks of red meat measuring approximately 2 by 2 inches fell from the sky.
In June 1874, an estimated 12 trillion locusts devasted the American Great Plains. Laura Ingalls-Wilder (Little House on the Prairie) wrote of the aftermath: “The whole prairie was changed. The grasses did not wave; they had fallen in ridges. The rising sun made all the prairie rough with shadows where the tall grasses had sunk against each other. The willow trees were bare. In the plum thickets, only a few plumpits hung to the leafless branches. The nipping, clicking, gnawing sound of the grasshoppers’ eating was still going on.”
In 1815, Indonesia went without a summer, thanks to the eruption of Mount Tambora. This also affected Europe, and the dark summer had a role in inspiring Mary Shelley’s famous horror classic, Frankenstein.
On January 6, 1839, a massive winter storm descended on Ireland and devasted Dublin. "A quarter of Dublin's buildings were damaged, and it was described as a "sacked city." Fires spread across County Longford, with winds picking up fires and dropping them from the sky over the rest of the countryside. Fields were stripped, and hundreds of thousands of trees fell. Tales say that water and fish were picked up and hurled miles across the countryside, that salt from the ocean doused fields in the center of the country." Source
On Black Monday in 1360 (Easter Monday) during the Hundred Years' War (1337–60), a freak hail storm struck and killed an estimated 1,000 English soldiers. The storm was so devastating that it caused more English casualties than any of the previous battles of the war.
On June 15, 1960, in what came to be called "Satan's Storm," a surge of heat encompassed parts of central Texas and temperatures rose to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Parents at the time wrapped their children in wet towels and bed sheets, and many there thought this was the end of the world.
In the late summer of 2001, southern India experienced rain that was blood red in color.
On January 2017 it snowed...in the Sahara Desert.
Then there is the case of Roy Sullivan, a man who holds the Guinness World Record for surviving seven different lightning strikes. He was struck on April 1942, July 1969, July 1970, spring 1972, August 1972, June 1976 and June 1977. Sullivan was a United States park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.
