h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For decades, I have had an interest in that whole event. One year of school, our Latin studies were supplemented with brief tales of life in Pompeii as well.

It's always more interesting to learn about the people, I find. But then again, I am studying history.

Worth mentioning that when Vesuvius went up again in 1943-4, the magnitude of the eruptions had a direct effect on the outcome of WW2: the original intention of the allied invasion of Italy had been to race north, using the peninsula as a short-cut to invade Germany from the south through Austria, whilst opening the possibilities of a knight's move either side, into either Yugoslavia or the south of France.

But when the volcano erupted, it blocked the axis of movement north through Italy, thus delaying the allied advance, and allowing the Germans time to fortify a defensive line and retreat to it. There were Allied troops north of the volcano when it erupted: but reinforcing and supplying them bacame more difficult; pursuing the Germans was out of the question, and for humanitarian reasons, it was thought that if the city of Naples had to be evacuated, this would occupy so much British and American manpower and supply capacity as to make it imperative to seek a local truce with the Germans...

Worth mentioning that when Vesuvius went up again in 1943-4, the magnitude of the eruptions had a direct effect on the outcome of WW2: the original intention of the allied invasion of Italy had been to race north, using the peninsula as a short-cut to invade Germany from the south through Austria, whilst opening the possibilities of a knight's move either side, into either Yugoslavia or the south of France.

But when the volcano erupted, it blocked the axis of movement north through Italy, thus delaying the allied advance, and allowing the Germans time to fortify a defensive line and retreat to it. There were Allied troops north of the volcano when it erupted: but reinforcing and supplying them bacame more difficult; pursuing the Germans was out of the question. For humanitarian reasons, it was thought that if the city of Naples was threatened and had to be evacuated, this would occupy so much British and American manpower and supply capacity as to make it imperative to seek a local truce with the Germans...

I didn't know that, thanks!