Uber-humanities dork that I am, I took two Geo courses to get rid of my science requirements. The only vaguely interesting things about Geology were the volcanoes and earthquakes, mainly because once they're documented they become part of the social science realm (if a tree falls in a forest and no one records the effects, does it really matter if it fell? Makes a good discussion topic.)
This is not a random tangent!!! The anniversary of Vesuvius' eruption in 79 AD was almost two weeks ago. (Just now weeding through the old "This Day in History" emails....)
Pliny the Younger's account is a disturbingly detailed account of the event --yay, primary sources! (And ah, fond memories of zoning out of math class in middle school to flip through archeological magazines.) But I'd forgotten Vesuvius is Europe's only active volcano -- its last eruption was in 1944. The blast that leveled Pompeii and Herculaneum is the most famous but certainly not the end of the mountain's capabilities.
Now I have the Dar Williams' song stuck in my head.
But, "as for my own kingdom..."
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