1. The eruption buried Pompeii and Herculaneum beneath mud, lava and ash until they were rediscovered and excavated in the 18th century.
2. Author Pliny the Younger wrote a graphic account of the eruption, which killed his uncle.
3. Such explosive eruptions, sending molten rock 15 to 20 miles high are known as Plinian.
4. Vesuvius has erupted more than 30 times since AD 79 but the richness of the soil after an eruption always led to new settlements around its base.
5. The eruption in 512 was so severe that people living on its slopes were granted tax exemption
6. An eruption of Vesuvius in 1906 ended plans for Italy to hold the Olympics in 1908. They moved to London. The most recent eruption was in 1944.
7. The AD 79 eruption released 100,000 times the energy of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
8. Vesuvius is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted in the last century.
9. Although the date of the eruption has long been thought to be August 24, there is much evidence that it may actually have been September 24.
10. In 1995, the entire mountain of Vesuvius was declared an Italian National Park.