Pompeii is a preserved ancient Roman city in Campania, Italy. It is at the southeastern base of Mount Vesuvius (a volcano).
Around midday on August 24, 79 CE (one thousand, nine hundred and forty seven years ago), a huge eruption from Mount Vesuvius showered volcanic debris - rock and ash - over the city of Pompeii, followed the next day by clouds of blisteringly hot gases. Buildings were destroyed, the population was crushed or choked to death, and the city was buried.
The rock and ash protected the buried city until it was rediscovered three hundred years ago.
During a volcanic eruption, hot melted rock called magma escapes from a vent, or opening, in Earth’s surface, or crust. Magma released from a volcano is known as lava, which is 700 to 1,200 ° C in temperature.
Strong volcanic eruptions throw bits of magma into the air. These bits cool into tiny pieces of rock, called volcanic dust or volcanic ash.
Steam and poisonous gases also escape from volcanoes. Sometimes these gases are mixed with ash and other hot debris. This mixture travels outward in destructive fiery clouds, called pyroclastic flows.
This combination of rock and ash, followed poisonous gases mixed with more ash, covered the city.
Surviving Pompeii
Pompeii's Last Day
Italian Roma. a city in and the capital of Italy, in the central part, on the Tiber: ancient capital of the Roman Empire; site of Vatican City, seat of authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
the ancient Italian kingdom, republic, and empire whose capital was the city of Rome.
According to legend, Ancient Rome was founded by the two brothers, and demigods, Romulus and Remus, on 21 April 753 BCE.
The legend claims that in an argument over who would rule the city, Romulus killed Remus and named the city after himself.
The Roman Empire was founded when Augustus Caesar proclaimed himself the first emperor of Rome in 31BC and came to an end with the fall of Constantinople in 1453CE (over one thousand years later).
An empire is a political system in which a group of people are ruled by a single individual, an emperor or empress.
Four sisters in Ancient Rome
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