The 79AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius was the first time the volcano had erupted for 1,800 years.
Today Pompeii is a tourist destination where you can walk through the streets of what was once the first-century Roman city of Pompeii. The town was excavated 1,600 years later and the remains of many items, buildings and people were found in a ‘petrified’ state (as they were at the time of the eruption). Most of the people who lived there were killed.
On 24 August 79AD was buried under volcanic ash and rock following the eruption of the volcano, Mount Vesuvius. Pompeii was a Roman town in southern Italy.
