Tag: Volcano

February 20, 1524: Don’t They Know It’s the End of the World?

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Those Peruvians must have thought the world was coming to an end end-of-the-world_2038061cwhen the volcano blew its top in 1600 (February 19). In Europe, they were certain the end was near quite a few years earlier. In fact, in 1524 you couldn’t swing a virgin without hitting a prophet of doom. They all pretty much agreed that 1524 was curtains and that a Noah-like deluge would be responsible, thanks to a conjunction of major planets in Pisces (the water sign) — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, being the culprits along with the sun.

As far back as 1499, astrologer Johannes Stoeffler had identified the exact day of the giant flood as February 20, 1524. His authority on the matter was such that more than a hundred pamphlets were written and published on his prediction.

George Tannstetter, of the University of Vienna, was one of the few astrologers who disagreed with the other Cassandras. Drawing up his own horoscope, he discovered that he would live well beyond 1524, and therefore the world would keep on turning. He was pretty much dismissed as a village idiot and ignored.

In response to the many dire predictions, worried Europeans set about building boats.  Arks were everywhere. One over-achieving would-be Noah, a German Count von Iggleheim, built himself a three-story ark, no doubt with some grand purpose in mind. When, on February 20, the predicted rain sputtered into a brief, inconsequential shower, the mobs awaiting the deluge grew restless, then piqued, and finally they ran amok, stoning the Count to death in the process. For the Count and a few hundred others killed in the melee, it was the end of the world (just as it was for those Peruvians who thought it would be entertaining to watch the volcano explode).

Stoeffler, who somehow escaped the angry mobs, went back to the drawing board and came up with a new doomsday date in 1528. His perseverance, however, did not set afloat any more arks.

Maybe not the End of the World, But Certainly the End of His Cornfield

For weeks the folks living in a small village 200 miles west of Mexico City had been hearing thunder when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Then on the afternoon of February 20, 1943, Dionisio Pulido, a farmer who was tending to his cornfield, heard an unfamiliar hissing sound. There was also an unusual smell, like that of rotten eggs. As he stood there, a lump appeared in the ground nearby. It got steadily bigger, swelling to become a dome some seven feet across and seven feet high. A fine gray dust was rising from a fissure in the dome, and the hissing had become loud and continuous.

The dome continued to grow rapidly. By nightfall it was spewing flames a half a mile high, bursting and falling back toward the ground like a fireworks display. Dionisio and hs family escaped the spewing volcano as it began its 9 years of activity, erupting until 1952. When its temper tantrum was over, it had left a cone 1,391 feet high, destroyed an area of 90 square miles, and completely buried two towns.

The volcano, known as Paricutin, is now dormant, and the area has become a major tourist attraction with hordes of hikers scaling the dome in search of grilled corn.

February 19, 1600: All for the Want of a Virgin

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Back in the 16th century, the natives of Arequipa in the Andean mountains of Peru led a simple, uncluttered existence, pounding stuff on rocks, doing folk dances and sacrificing bits of clothing, animals and virgins to the neighborhood volcano, Huaynaputina. The sacrifices kept Supay, the god of death, happy. And it’s always best to keep the god of death happy. But then along came the buttinsky Spanish to colonize South America, and right away they outlawed the practice of sacrifice. Well, we can be certain Supay was not amused. In fact, Father Alonso Ruiz of Arequipa in 1599 predicted an imminent “hit from heaven.”

Sure enough, Huaynaputina began to noisily pass gas.  The local natives scrambled to appease the volcano, preparing virgins, pets, and flowers for sacrifice. Huaynaputina just kept chugging and rumbling and carrying on as though it were about to blow its top, and on February 19, 1600, it did. With a huge fiery explosion, it spewed volcanic ash into the Peruvian sky. Rivers of lava flowed down the mountain. Supay was throwing one mean tantrum. Within 24 hours, Arequipa was covered with a foot of ash, and most everyone around was dead.

Not only did Huaynaputina do a number on Peru, it also affected a good part of the world. In the northern hemisphere, 1601 was the coldest year in six centuries. There was a famine in Russia. In China, the peach trees didn’t bloom. In France, the wine harvest was late.

All for the want of a virgin or two.

These Would Make Great Little Sacrifices

Born back in 1896 with the slogan “The More You Eat The More You Want,” the molasses-flavored, caramel-coated popcorn-peanut combo called Cracker Jack is widely considered to be the first junk food. Oddly enough, this treat that is synonymous with “that old ball game” limped along without prizes inside the box for 16 years. Prizes first appeared on February 19, 1912. These “surprizes” included such valuable items as rings, little plastic geegaws, stickers, trading cards, whistles and tattoos. They spawned the catchphrase “came in a Cracker Jack box” used to disparage an item not deemed of great value. (Not valuable? An early metal horse and wagon from a Cracker Jack box is now worth $300.)

When Frito-Lay gained control of Cracker Jack, trinkets went downhill. Geegaws, trading cards and whistles gave way to paper toys, and in 2016 by digital codes that would “allow families to enjoy their favorite baseball moments through a new one-of-a-kind mobile experience, leveraging digital technology to bring the iconic prize inside to life.” Ho-hum.

53 Cents and a Cracker Jack Prize

When Parcel Post was initiated in 1913, it was especially a boon to folks living in rural areas of the United States. The Pierstorff family lived in one of those rural areas — Grangeville, Idaho. They had been planning to send their daughter, five-year-old Charlotte May to visit her grandmother in Lewiston, Idaho, a 73-mile trip, but found the train fare prohibitive. Fortune smiled on the Pierstorffs. Charlotte May was a little slip of a thing, weighing just 48 pounds; the limit for Parcel Post was 50 pounds.

Yes kids, the Pierstorffs mailed Charlotte May to her grandmother. They didn’t put her in a box or anything like that; they simply attached the 53 cents postage to her coat and dropped her off at the post office on February 19, 1914. She spent the entire trip in the train’s mail compartment.  In Lewiston, the mail clerk delivered her safe and sound to her grandmother’s home. How’s that for service, you Postal Service detractors?

Charlotte May, who lived to be 78, never traveled by mail again. Soon after her trip, postal regulations were changed to prohibit sending a person or persons through the mail.