History Flashback takes a look at historical “found footage” of all kinds—newsreels, instructional films, even cartoons—to give us a glimpse into how much things have changed, and how much has remained the same. On Thursday, May 3, 2018, the Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano began sending ...read more
When the headless skeleton of a Pompeii man was discovered in May, archeologists believed he was decapitated by a large block of stone that landed on top of him and severed his head while he was fleeing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius some 2,000 years ago. But his skull, ...read more
When disaster strikes, sometimes you lose your head. That was the literal truth for one unfortunate volcano victim who lived in the ancient city of Pompeii, the Associated Pressreports: When he failed to leave the soon-to-be-decimated city as Mt. Vesuvius exploded, a massive ...read more
Archaeologists who discovered the imprint of a horse killed in the Pompeii disaster have now cast a full-size plaster replica of the horse’s body print, the first to be found in the wreckage at Pompeii. The horse with no name met its fate in 79 A.D., when the Mount Vesuvius ...read more
Krakatoa is a small volcanic island in Indonesia, located about 100 miles west of Jakarta. In August 1883, the eruption of the main island of Krakatoa (or Krakatau) killed more than 36,000 people, making it one of the most devastating volcanic eruptions in human history. WHERE ...read more
Mount St. Helens is a volcano located in southwestern Washington state. It’s the most active volcano in the Cascade Range, a mountain range that extends from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to northern California. For thousands of years, Mount St. Helens has ...read more
In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted on Sumbawa, an island of modern-day Indonesia. Historians regard it as the volcano eruption with the deadliest known direct impact: roughly 100,000 people died in the immediate aftermath. But far more died over the next several years, due to ...read more
Despite the obvious challenges of living on Antarctica, certain plants and animals have managed to make a go of it. Millions of birds, for example, breed each year near the coastline, including emperor penguins, Adélie penguins, snow petrels and south polar skuas. There are no ...read more
The Jehol Biota fossil beds, located in Liaoning province in northeast China, contain thousands of fossil deposits ranging from fish to the first-known feathered dinosaurs, and from early mammals to birds and insects. Paleontologists, who have mined the beds for a wealth of ...read more
Aside from giant asteroid strikes, supervolcanoes are the most devastating of all natural disasters; they have been known in the past to cause mass extinctions and long-term climate changes. The last known supervolcano eruption, believed to have occurred around 70,000 years ago ...read more
Whereas scientists usually are forced to piece together what ancient forests may have looked like by looking at fossilized specimens from varying eras, the volcano preserved an entire ecosystem all in one shot. Evidence suggests that the volcanic blast came from as many as 100 ...read more
Nevado del Ruiz, the highest active volcano in the Andes Mountains of Colombia, suffers a mild eruption that generates a series of lava flows and surges over the volcano’s broad ice-covered summit. Flowing mixtures of water, ice, pumice, and other rock debris poured off the ...read more
At 8:32 a.m. PDT, Mount St. Helens, a volcanic peak in southwestern Washington, suffers a massive eruption, killing 57 people and devastating some 210 square miles of wilderness. Called Louwala-Clough, or “the Smoking Mountain,” by Native Americans, Mount St. Helens is located in ...read more
The most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurs on Krakatau (also called Krakatoa), a small, uninhabited volcanic island located west of Sumatra in Indonesia, on this day in 1883. Heard 3,000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into ...read more
On this day in 1985, a volcano erupts in Colombia, killing well over 20,000 people as nearby towns are buried in mud, ice and lava. The Nevado del Ruiz volcano is situated in the north-central part of Colombia. Over the centuries, various eruptions caused the formation of large ...read more
In a highly unusual chain of events, a volcanic eruption in New Zealand causes a flood that sweeps away a train filled with passengers on this day in 1953. More than 150 people lost their lives in this improbable disaster. At the top of a 9,000-foot volcano, Mount Ruapehu, on New ...read more
Heavy eruptions of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia are letting up by this day in 1815. The volcano, which began rumbling on April 5, killed almost 100,000 people directly and indirectly. The eruption was the largest ever recorded and its effects were noted throughout the ...read more
The Bandai volcano erupts on the Japanese island of Honshu on this day in 1888, killing hundreds and burying many nearby villages in ash. Honshu, the main island of the Japanese archipelago, is in an area of intense geological activity, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions ...read more
On this day in 1902, Martinique’s Mount Pele begins the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The following day, the city of Saint Pierre, which some called the Paris of the Caribbean, was virtually wiped off the map. Mount Pele, the name meaning bald in French, ...read more
Mount St. Helens in Washington erupts, causing a massive avalanche and killing 57 people on this day in 1980. Ash from the volcanic eruption fell as far away as Minnesota. Seismic activity at Mount St. Helens, which is 96 miles south of Seattle, began on March 16. A ...read more
On this day in 1669, Mount Etna, on the island of Sicily in modern-day Italy, begins rumbling. Multiple eruptions over the next few weeks killed more than 20,000 people and left thousands more homeless. Most of the victims could have saved themselves by fleeing, but stayed, in ...read more
The combination of an earthquake and a volcanic eruption at El Chichon in southern Mexico converts a hill into a crater, kills thousands of people and destroys acres of farmland on this day in 1982. The eruptions, which continued for over a week, caught many of the area residents ...read more