1980: Eruption of Mount St. Helens.This day in 1980, an earthquake with a 5.1 Richter magnitude triggered a gigantic landslide on the north face of Mount St. Helens in southwestern Washington. The north slope fell away in an avalanche that was followed by a lateral air blast, which carried a high-velocity cloud of superheated ash and stone outward more than 20 km (12 miles) from Mount St. Helens's summit. The avalanche and lateral blast were followed by mudflows, pyroclastic flows, and floods that buried the river valleys to the east. Meanwhile, simultaneous with the avalanche, a vertical eruption of gas and ash formed a column more than 20 km high that produced ash falls as far east as central Montana. Sixty people and thousands of animals were killed, and 10 million trees were blown down.More events on this day1974:Entering the nuclear arms race, India detonated a nuclear weapon in the Rajasthan desert. |
1956:Swiss climbers Fritz Luchsinger and Ernest Reiss made the first ascent of the Lhotse I mountain in the Himalayan range. |
1953:American aviator Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier, which is Mach 1. |
1940:Brussels, Belgium, fell to the invading German army in World War II and was subjected to harsh terms of occupation. |
1933:The U.S. government established the Tennessee Valley Authority to control floods and produce electrical power along the Tennessee River and its tributaries. |
1899:The first of a series of international conferences that produced the Hague Convention began at The Hague in The Netherlands. |
1860:Abraham Lincoln became the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency on the third ballot at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. |
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