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1772
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Hamilton's book Campi Phlegraei, containing his graphic reports of Vesuvius's activities, is published. He is helped to draw up a chronology by the register that records the ceremonies when San Gennaro's relics are processed.
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1779
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Vesuvius erupts (August). Hamilton writes: 'In an instant a column
of liquid transparent fire [lava] began to rise... To the best
of my judgement the height of this stupendous column of fire cou'd
not be less than three times that of Vesuvius itself, which...
rises perpendicularly, near 3,700 feet [1,130m] above the level
of the sea.' The explosion is known as the 'centenary eruption'
as it occurred almost exactly 1,700 years after the disaster of
AD 79.
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1787
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German poet Goethe visits Vesuvius ('the peak of hell') and Pompeii: 'Many a calamity has happened in the world, but never one that has caused so much entertainment to posterity as this one.'
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1794
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Vesuvius erupts (June). Hamilton counts 15 separate lava flows.
One destroys Torre del Greco. Breislack, an Italian geologist,
writes: [The lava flow's] first direction was towards Portici
and Resina, so that the inhabitants of Torre del Greco already
bewailed the fate of their neighbours, and began their thanksgivings
to the Almighty for their escape. Collected together in the church,
they were still singing hymns of joy... when a voice announced
to them the fatal news of their approaching destiny·' Vesuvius
is completely altered, its peak now lower than that of Monte Somma.
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1804
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The
French writer-diplomat Chateaubriand visits Vesuvius: 'Pliny perished
owing to his desire to contemplate, at a distance, the volcano,
in the centre of which I was now tranquilly seated. I saw the
abyss smoking around me. I reflected that a few fathoms below
me was a gulph of fire. I reflected that the volcano might at
once disgorge its entrails, and launch me into the air amidst
the rocky fragments by which I was surrounded.'
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1805-6
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Vesuvius erupts. German polymath Alexander von Humboldt and his
friend Simon Bolivar, the future 'liberator' of South America,
observe the conflagration.
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1822
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Vesuvius erupts. The plume rises to 2,000m (6,560ft), ashes fall in Calabria and a volcanic 'bomb' of several tons lands in Prince Ottaiano's garden 5km (3.1 miles) from the crater.
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1838
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Vesuvius erupts.
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c. 1840
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Tariffs
are fixed for tourist visits up Vesuvius: 'a night visit with
a donkey, 2 ducats and 40 grani; a night visit with a horse, 3
ducats...'
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1841
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World's first vulcanological observatory is created on Vesuvius by Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies.
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1845
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Charles Dickens visits the area and describes Vesuvius as 'bright and snowy' - 'The mountain is the genius of the scene, the doom and destiny of this beautiful country, biding its time.' Later there is a minor eruption.
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1850
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Vesuvius erupts particularly severely.
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1855
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Vesuvius erupts. It is feared that the lava might even reach Naples (it doesn't).
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1858
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Vesuvius erupts.
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1861
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Vesuvius erupts.
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1872
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Vesuvius erupts (April). Projectiles from the volcano shower down, killing medical students climbing the mountain. The entire cone splits. In the years before the next eruption, Vesuvius rises to 1,322m (4,338ft) above sea level.
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1881
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Vesuvius erupts.
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1883
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Augustus Hare's guidebook Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily is published. Of Vesuvius, he instructs: 'Everyone should wear their worst clothes; boots are ruined by the sharp lava, and coloured dresses are stained by the fumes of the sulphur.' .
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1906
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Vesuvius erupts (April). Mountain loses 100m (325ft) in height.
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1943
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Allies drop at least 150 bombs on the ruins of Pompeii in the belief that the Germans were using them as an ammunition dump.
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1944
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Vesuvius
erupts (12-29 March). Lava flows through the towns of Massa and
San Sebastiano on the north slope. A headline of Stars and
Stripes, the newspaper of the US 5th Army, newly arrived in
the Neapolitan countryside, proclaims: 'Vesuvius awakes for joy
at being reunited with his old friends from America.' A few days
later, volcanic 'bombs' destroy almost all the Allied military
planes at Poggiomarina, and the Germans use the illumination from
the eruption to guide their nightly bombing raids on Naples...
The cone, which before could be seen from Naples, is flattened
and the mountain is lop-sided and lower, now 1,280m (3,900ft)
high.
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1980
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Pompeii is damaged by an earthquake.
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The future
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Experts agree that Vesuvius's next eruption will probably be the greatest since 1631. About a million people live in the potential danger zone.
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