Mount Pinatubo is an active volcano located on the island of Luzon in
the Philippines, at the intersection of the borders of the provinces
of Zambales, Bataan, and Pampanga. Before 1991, the mountain was
inconspicuous and heavily eroded. It was covered in dense forest which
supported a population of several thousand indigenous people, the
Aeta, who had fled to the mountains from the lowlands when the Spanish
conquered the Philippines in 1565. The volcano's most recent eruption
in June 1991 came after 500 years of dormancy, and produced one of the
largest and most violent eruptions of the 20th century. Successful
predictions of the onset of the climactic eruption led to the
evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the surrounding areas,
saving many lives, but the surrounding areas were severely damaged by
pyroclastic flows, ash deposits, and later, lahars caused by rainwater
remobilising earlier volcanic deposits, and thousands of houses were
destroyed. The effects of the eruption were felt world-wide. It
injected large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere—more than any
eruption since that of Krakatoa in 1883. Global temperatures dropped
by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F), and ozone destruction increased
substantially.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pinatubo
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1420:
Henry the Navigator became Grandmaster of the Order of Christ, the
Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_the_Navigator)
1521:
Martin Luther was declared an outlaw and a heretic by the Diet of
Worms.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther)
1810:
May Revolution: Citizens of Buenos Aires ousted the Spanish viceroy
and established the first independent local government in Argentina.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenos_Aires)
1895:
The Republic of Formosa was inaugurated in Taiwan, proclaiming
independence from Qing China.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Taiwan)
1961:
Project Apollo, with the goal of "landing a man on the Moon and
returning him safely to Earth", was announced.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Apollo)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would
men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the
remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night
come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their
admonishing smile." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson)