Archives: Mt. Vesuvius

Leonardo’s journals; eyewitness to the biggest event of the first century; football art and the First Amendment; newsletter Feb. 9, 2018

February 12, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: journalism, newsletter, writing.

This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (3,317) on Friday, Feb. 9, 2018. Hi, This has been The Week of Interesting Things for me. Most of my weeks could take that moniker, but this one seemed especially full. I try to put a lot of interesting things I find into the newsletter, but I • Read More »

Tags: A Word a Day, alphabet, Cades Cove, crimes against English, Daniel Moore, First Amendment, football, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Langston Hughes, Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo's journals, lost letters, Mt. Vesuvius, Pliny the Younger, redundancy, University of Alabama, Walter Isaacson, watercolor

Eyewitness to Vesuvius: Pliny the Younger and reporting the event of the century

February 6, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: journalism, reporting, writing.

The mountain exploded in August 79 AD. The ensuing lava flow engulfed two entire cities (Herculaneum and Pompeii) and smothered a third, Stabiae, with poisonous gas. The darkness that the clouds of dust and smoke created was, in the ones of an eyewitness, “. . . not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room.”

Tags: eyewitness, Herculaneum, Mt. Vesuvius, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Pompeii, Stabiae