Over in just a few hours, the disaster that buried a city and its inhabitants under the ashes of Vesuvius has preserved priceless treasures, still intact to this day. On the evening of that August 24, one might have asked what tomorrow would bring—but by dawn, the end had already come.
On February 5th in the year 62 AD, the entire Vesuvian region was devastated by a violent earthquake that nearly destroyed the city of Herculaneum and toppled many buildings in Pompeii. That earthquake was a mere omen of the fatal tragedy that befell Pompeii seventeen years later when, unable to diffuse its roiling energy through a crack in the earth’s crust, Vesuvius burst its dam and began to erupt.
It was August 24, 79 AD.
