15 July: Mount Etna

This date in 1669 marked the official end of an eruption of Mount Etna which had started on 11 March, damaging several towns and villages. This eruption is considered the most significant of Etna’s historic eruptions. 10 things you might not know about Etna:

1. First of all, where is it? Mount Etna is located on the east coast of Sicily between the cities of Messina and Catania.

2. It is one of the tallest active volcanoes in Europe, and the tallest peak in Italy south of the Alps. Its height isn’t constant, however. Eruptions at the summit can change the height. In September 2024, its height was 3,403 m (11,165 ft). That’s two and a half times the height of Mount Vesuvius. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 (459 sq mi) with a basal circumference of 140 km (87 miles).

3. There are two theories about where the name Etna came from. One is that it derives from the Greek for “I burn” and the other is that it came from a Phoenician word meaning 'furnace' or 'Chimney'. In Italy it’s often referred to by the alternative name of Mongibello or Montebello, which translates to “beautiful mountain”, or Mungibeddu in Sicily.

4. Mount Etna erupts on average once a year. At time of writing the most recent eruption mentioned began on 1 January 2026. The first written record of Etna erupting dates back to between 60 and 30 BC and was created by a Greek historian called Diodorus Siculus.

5. The volcano is also mentioned in Roman mythology as it was said to be the location for the blacksmith’s forge of Vulcan, the god of fire. According to the myth, eruptions happened when Vulcan found out that his wife, Venus, had been unfaithful and he would go to his workshop and take out his anger on his metalwork.

6. Despite being an active volcano, it attracts many tourists. It’s possible to go horse riding, quad biking or mountain biking on the sides of the volcano, although only as part of a guided tour.

7. You can even go Skiing. There are two ski resorts on Etna: one at the Sapienza Refuge, with a chairlift and three ski lifts, and a smaller one on the north, at Piano Provenzana near Linguaglossa, with three lifts and a chairlift. A bit risky though: in 2002 a massive eruption wiped out a ski lift, two hotels, and some shops.

8. Lava flows have created numerous caves which over the years have been put to various uses including as an air raid shelter in WWII and for producing enough ice to export to Malta and Naples, and create hundreds of jobs. Today the caves are a tourist attraction and guided tours are available. The snow cave used for ice production is the most visited.

9. Minerals spewed out by volcanoes make for very fertile soil and Etna is no exception. Grapes for some of Italy’s best wines are grown here. Over 150 wineries are found on the slopes.

10. Mount Etna has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since June 2013.

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24 August: Volcanic eruptions

The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius took place on this date in 79AD. 10 things you might not know about volcanic eruptions:

1. The word volcano derives from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. The study of volcanoes is called volcanology, sometimes spelled vulcanology.

2. There are two main types – composite volcanoes, cone-shaped with steep slopes, and shield volcanoes, wide with gentle slopes. There are also classifications relating to the amount of activity. “Active” means regular activity, “dormant” means there’s been recent activity but the volcano is currently quiet, and “extinct” means it’s been so long since the last eruption that it’s unlikely to ever erupt again.

3. The danger area around a volcano covers about a 20-mile radius. Approximately 350 million people live within the danger area of an active volcano. That means about one in 20 people live in an area at risk of volcanic activity.

4. There are more than 500 active volcanoes in the world. 75% of them are part of the "Ring of Fire," a region that encircles the Pacific Ocean. Indonesia is the most volcanically active country on the Ring of Fire.

5. Paricutin is a cinder cone volcano which suddenly appeared in a cornfield in Mexico in 1943. The owner of the field was one Dionisio Pulido. One likes to think that what he lost in corn production was compensated for by the fact he was now the owner of a scientific curiosity and later a tourist attraction. Paricutin was active for nine years in which it was extensively studied. Today. It’s dormant and tourists flock to climb it.

6. While still inside the volcano, the liquid rock is called magma. Once the volcano erupts the same stuff is called lava. Lava from a volcano can reach 1,250°C. Sometimes volcanoes spew out mud as well. Mud flows from volcanoes are called lahars. They can sweep away buildings and kill people just as much as lava can.

7. The largest active volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa in Hawaii at 4,169m tall, which last erupted in 2022. There are larger volcanoes elsewhere in the solar system, the largest known being Olympus Mons on Mars.

8. The loudest sound in recorded history was made by a volcano. When Krakatoa in Southeast Asia erupted in 1883 it released 200 megatrons of energy – the equivalent of 15,000 nuclear bombs.

9. Sometimes there’s lightning inside the clouds of volcanic ash created by an eruption. These clouds generate static electricity just like thunderclouds do.

10. Okay, so volcanoes kill people and do an awful lot of damage, but without them there would probably be no life on Earth. More than 80% of the earth's surface is volcanic in origin. Gaseous emissions from volcanoes formed the earth's atmosphere, and they also released the hydrogen and Oxygen inside the rocks, creating water. Then, over time, lava and ash break down to produce nutrient-rich soil, which explains why those 350 million people chose to live near volcanoes – it’s the best place for growing crops. Some birds, like the Maleo bird, find them useful too. They bury their eggs near volcanoes to keep them warm. When the chicks hatch they claw their way up to the surface.

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The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

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3 June: Chimborazo Day

Today is Chimborazo Day. Here are 10 facts about Chimborazo:

1. First of all, what is it? Answer: an inactive volcano in the Andes, located in Ecuador, 150 km (93 mi) south-southwest of Quito.

2. Its elevation is 6,263 m 20,549.4 ft, and it’s Ecuador’s highest mountain, and the 16^th highest in the world.

3. Or is it? Depending on how you’re measuring the height of Mountains, it might actually be the highest. If you’re measuring from sea level then Mount Everest is the highest. However, if you measure from the centre of the Earth, thanks to the planet bulging slightly at the equator, Chimborazo is 2.1km taller. The summit of Chimborazo is 3,968 miles (6,384.4 kilometers) from the centre of the Earth. Chimborazo is only one degree south of the equator, while Mount Everest is 28 degrees north.

4. Linguists haven’t been able to reach a consensus on the origin of the name. Possibilities include "the snow on the other side", “Mountain of Ice” or “Women of Snow”.

5. It last erupted 1,400 years ago, around 550 A.D.

6. Its crater is 820 feet deep and has a surface diameter of 1,600 feet.

7. Chimborazo has four major summits: Whymper, the highest point at 20,702ft/6,310m; Veintemilla 20,561ft/6,267m; Politecnica, 19,094ft/5,820m; and Nicolas Martínez 18,274ft/5,570m. The latter was named after the father of Ecuadorian mountaineering.

8. Baron Alexander von Humboldt, Aime Goujaud AKA Bonpland, and Carlos Montufar made the first recorded attempt to climb it in 1802. However, they had to turn back at 19,286 feet (5,878 meters) due to altitude sickness.

9. The first successful climb was in 1880 by Edward Whymper, who made the first ascent of The Matterhorn. His party included Italian guides Louis and Jean-Antoine Carrel. They were the first Europeans to summit a mountain higher than 20,000 feet.

10. Chimborazo is featured on the Ecuadorian coat of arms, to represent the beauty and richness of the Ecuadorian Sierra (Highlands).

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The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

31 August: Denali (formerly Mount McKinley)

On this date in 2015 Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America, officially regained its original Alaska Native name through an executive order issued by American President Barack Obama. 10 things you might not know about the mountain formerly known as Mount McKinley.

1. It’s the tallest mountain in North America standing at 20,232 feet (6,190 m) above sea-level. It actually has two summits, North and South. The South Summit is the higher one. The North Summit has an elevation of 19,470 ft (5,934 m).

2. It is located in Alaska’s Denali National Park, 130 miles north-northwest of Anchorage and 170 miles southwest of Fairbanks.

3. There are five large glaciers which flow from the top of the mountain: The Peters Glacier, the Muldrow Glacier, the Traleika Glacier, the Ruth Glacier and the Kahiltna Glacier. With a length of 44 mi (71 km), the Kahiltna Glacier is the longest glacier in the Alaska Range.

4. In 1896, the mountain was unofficially named Mount McKinley by a Gold prospector called William Dickey and then officially by the federal government in 1917 to commemorate President William McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901.

5. The dispute over what to call the mountain has been going on since 1975 when the Alaska Legislative asked the US government to change its name to Denali. It took 40 years for it to happen.

6. Denali comes from the Koyukon language and means “The Great One”.

7. The first successful climb was achieved on 7 June 1913, when Walter Harper, Harry Karstens, Hudson Stuck and Robert Tatum reached the top. Hudson Stuck commented, “anyone who thinks that the climbing of Denali is a picnic is badly mistaken.”

8. Part of the reason for that is because Denali is located at 63 degrees North and 151 degrees West. Because it is so far north, there’s a lot of low pressure around it, an effect which is more pronounced than for the rest of the world’s tallest mountains. The temperature can drop to -75 degrees with wind chills as low as -118 degrees. The top of the mountain is permanently covered in Snow. Only about 50% of attempts to climb are successful. The best time to try according to experts, is in April, May or June.

9. The first woman to reach the top was Barbara Washburn in 1947 who climbed with her husband, Bradford, who became the first person to reach the summit twice. The first woman to climb it by herself was Dr. Miri Ercolani in 1982.

10. In 1932, a climbing party was airlifted onto the side of the mountain for the first time. By the 1950s, this had become the standard way to get to the summit, as it cut the expedition time by several weeks.

Character birthday

Whiplash, aka Mark Moore. Employed by Professor Power as a technician, he was regarded as an inconsequential nerd by colleagues. He was someone who was conscientious and beavered away in the background, simply getting things done. Even Seth Power himself rarely noticed the young man, which meant that Moore could eavesdrop on Power League planning meetings without being noticed. Moore was a lonely and awkward young man who spent most of his spare time reading comics, and identifying with the villains more than the heroes. The idea of the Power League excited him, and he fantasised about being part of it. He designed and built the electronic whip to use as a weapon and devised a costume which not only concealed his identity, but protected him from the electric discharges of his weapon.

He then approached Power, as Whiplash, asking to join the League. Power set him a series of unpleasant, difficult and violent tasks as an entry test. Whiplash completed them all while still working in the lab as the unassuming Mark Moore, surreptitiously gathering the knowledge he needed to complete the tasks. To this day, Power is unaware that they are one and the same person.

13 November: Mount Rainier

On this date in 1843 Mount Rainier in Washington State erupted. 10 things you might not know about Mount Rainier.

1. Where is it? It is located in Mount Rainier National Park about 59 miles (95 km) south-southeast of Seattle. On a clear day, you can see it from as far away as Corvallis, Oregon and Victoria, British Columbia, up to 300 miles away.
2. It is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington and the Cascade Range. It has three summits, actually. The highest is called the Columbia Crest and has an elevation of 14,411 ft (4,392 m). The second highest summit is Point Success, 14,158 ft (4,315 m) and the lowest of the three is Liberty Cap, 14,112 ft (4,301 m).
3. Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. It has 26 glaciers and 36 sq mi (93 km2) of permanent snowfields. The glaciers are important sources of streamflow for several rivers, including some that provide water for hydroelectric power and irrigation. There are ice worms living in the glaciers. These worms spend their entire lives in ice, wriggling to the surface to feed on snow algae. The ice worms found in Mount Rainier are also found in the glaciers of Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and British Colombia, but have not been found on other glaciers in the world. They can grow to around an inch long.
4. There are two volcanic craters on the summit, each more than 1,000 ft (300 m) in diameter, which overlap each other. Within the craters are 2 miles (3.2 km) of caves. The cave network is of great interest to scientists because of the tiny organisms which live there, feeding off the noxious gases in the cave. Scientists are interested in them because if there was life on Mars, it would probably be similar.
5. While on the subject of alien life, on 24 June 1947, Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a formation of nine unidentified flying objects over Mount Rainier. His description led to the term "flying saucers".
6. Mount Rainier has been known by several names. Native American tribes in the area called it Talol, Tacoma, Tacobeh, Pooskaus or Tahoma. Those names meant things like 'mother of waters', 'snow-covered mountain' or 'place where the water begins'. There's a theory that Tacoma might mean 'larger than Mount Baker', another volcano in the same mountain range, which was known as 'Coma'. The first European to see the volcano was Captain George Vancouver when he reached Puget Sound in early May 1792. It was he who gave it the name Mount Rainier after his friend Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. In February 2014 it was briefly re-named Mount Seattle Seahawks by Washington State Senate in honour of the fact said team were playing in Superbowl XLVIII. The day after the match it went back to being Mount Rainier again. This may not be the last name change, as there are discussions going on about whether it should revert to its original Native American name.
7. It's not an easy mountain to climb. 8,000 to 13,000 people attempt the climb each year and about half of them fail, usually because of the weather or not being fit enough. Those that do make it usually take a couple of days to get to the top. One notable exception was a woman named Bronka Sundstrom who did it in 4 hours and 40 minutes in 2002. Even more incredible – she was 77 years old at the time.
8. In 1951, John W. Hodgkin, an Air Force Lieutenant equipped his plane with skis and landed it on the summit of Mount Rainier at 14,410 feet, setting a world record for high altitude landings. When he wanted to take off again, however, his plane wouldn't start, so he had to spend the night in it and then slide it on its skis down one of the glaciers and glide the rest of the way to land on Mowich Lake. Once he got there, an Air Force rescue plane was able to drop 20 gallons of fuel so Hodgkin could refuel and fly back to where he'd started from.
9. Mount Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the Decade Volcano list. This list consists of 16 volcanoes around the world which are dangerous because of the likelihood they could erupt again and their proximity to human habitation. They are named Decade Volcanoes because the project was initiated in the 1990s as part of the United Nations–sponsored International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.
10. What kind of damage could it do if it did erupt? It's a stratovolcano which means it could erupt explosively resulting in lava flows which could destroy everything in the immediate vicinity. The ash it would belch out could cause problems from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to San Francisco, California. All the glaciers make for even bigger problems as the ice deposits dislodged by an eruption would cause something called lahars where rocks and mud would be carried along the valleys. There are lahar deposits in the area from ancient eruptions which are currently home to about 150,000 people. A repeat of those ancient lahars could destroy parts of downtown Seattle and cause tsunamis in Puget Sound and Lake Washington.

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11 December: International Mountain Day

Today is International Mountain Day. Here are ten fascinating facts about mountains:

1. How do you define a mountain? There is no generally accepted definition. It varies between regions with some saying a hill must be 1,000ft high, others say 2,000ft. Most geologists, however, classify a mountain as a landform that rises at least 1,000 feet (300 meters) or more above its surrounding area.
2. In Britain, especially Scotland, mountains and hills above certain heights are classified into named categories. A Munro is a mountain in Scotland over 3,000 feet (914.4 m).The name comes from Sir Hugh Munro who first compiled a list of them in 1891. There are 282 of them. Peaks between 2,500 and 3,000 feet (762.0 and 914.4 m) with a prominence of at least 500 feet (152.4 m). are called Corbetts after John Rooke Corbett, who compiled the list in the 1920s. There are 222 Corbetts. Climbers who climb all of the Corbetts are called Corbetteers; the first being Corbett himself who completed the task in 1943. Grahams are between 2,000 and 2,499 feet (610 and 762 metres) high, with a drop of at least 150 metres (490 feet) all round. People who manage to climb all of those are called Grahamists. Donalds are mountains in the Scottish Lowlands over 2,000 ft (610 m), of which there are 140. These are named for Percy Donald, who compiled the list in 1935.
3. Mountains in the rest of Britain or Ireland that would qualify as Munros are called Furths. Mountains and hills over 150 metres high are called Marilyns, which came from the English having a bit of a joke with regard to the Scottish Munros. Other classifications include Nuttalls, Hewitts and Birketts (Lake District).
4. Mountain definition was the theme of a 1995 film starring Hugh Grant, called The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain. It’s about the residents of a proud Welsh village who welcome some English cartographers who come to measure their local hill to determine if it qualifies as a mountain. It doesn’t – it falls a few feet short. The residents of the village conspire to build a mound on the summit to make it higher, so it can be called a mountain.
5. How were mountains made? There seem to be two main origins. One is plate tectonics, where the Earth’s crust moved and parts of it collided with other parts, forcing rock upwards similar to the way metal buckles in a car crash. The other is volcanic activity.
6. Most people, when asked what the world’s tallest mountain is will say Mount Everest, although it actually depends on how the height is measured. The height of mountains is usually measured from sea level, in which case Mount Everest, at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) is indeed the highest. However, if the height is measured from the base of the mountain, which can be underwater, which would make Mauna Kea in Hawaii, at 33,474 feet (10,203 meters) the world’s highest mountain, 4,000ft taller than Everest. If you take it as the distance the summit is from the centre of the Earth, the answer is different again – it’s Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.
7. The highest mountain known to man isn’t on Earth at all, but on Mars. Olympus Mons is said to be three times the size of Mount Everest. The highest mountain on the Moon is Mons Huygens, thought to be about 15,000 feet tall. Mountains on Venus are snow-capped in metal. Dr Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas has studied mountains on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. The mountains there are covered in fine ice crystals, making Dr. Schenk conclude that Enceladus would be the best place to go for an extra-terrestrial Ski trip.
8. There are also mountains under the sea which do not break the surface. They are called seamounts. The Earth's oceans contain more than 14,500 identified seamounts, few of which have been studied in detail, and scientists estimate that there could be as many as 100,000 more in areas which have not been mapped.
9. About a fifth of the land on the planet is covered in mountains. About 10% of the world’s population lives in mountainous areas. This includes La Rinconada in Peru, the highest permanent settlement in the world, where about 50,000 people live at an elevation of 5,052 metres. 80% of the fresh Water we drink originates in mountain peaks.
10. Some mountains are sacred to various religions around the world. Mount Olympos in Greece, Munt Fuji in Japan, Mount Brandon in Ireland and Nanda Devi in the Himalayas are examples. Some, like Mount Brandon, become centres of pilgrimage with people climbing to the summit as a religious task, while others, like Nanda Devi, are considered so sacred that people are forbidden to climb it at all.

See also: quotes about Mountains

NEW!

Who's That Girl?

Matt Webster lives in a tower block and attends a failing school. He dreams of being a spy like James Bond. Little does he know that he is being watched by someone who can make him into even more than that – a superhero.

His first solo mission is to attend a ball at the Decembrian Embassy and discover who is planning to steal a priceless diamond. While there, he meets the mysterious Lady Antonia du Cane, and is powerfully drawn to her. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lady du Cane is not what she seems. Matt’s quest to discover who she really is almost costs him his career.

A modern day Guy Fawkes gathers a coterie around him with the aim of blowing up Parliament with a nuclear bomb. To achieve this, they need money. Lots of it. Selling the Heart of Decembria Diamond will provide more than enough. All that stands in their way is the Freedom League – but the League is beset by internal disagreements. Can the heroes put their differences aside in time to save the day?

Prime Minister Richard Miller and his wife Fiona grieve for their daughter, Yasmin, who has been missing for three years, and is presumed to be dead. Viper agent Violet Parker could hold the key to what happened to Yasmin, but Violet is accused of giving away the organisation’s secrets. She is to be executed without trial. Will she take her knowledge of what happened to Yasmin with her to her grave?

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June 3: Annapurna

Annapurna was first climbed on June 3 1950. Here are ten facts about it.

1. Annapurna is a Sanskrit word which literally means “full of food”. Annapurna is a Hindu fertility goddess.
2. Annapurna is the tenth highest mountain in the world at 26,545 feet (8,091 meters).
3. What we're talking about when we refer to Annapurna is actually Annapurna I, the highest point of a 34-mile-long range east of the gorge of the Kali Gandaki River, in Nepal, which is the world's deepest canyon.
4. The first people to climb it in June 1950 were Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal, of France. This made it the first peak over 8,000 metres to be climbed.
5. Herzog wrote a book about the expedition, Annapurna, which sold over 11 million copies, making it the best-selling climbing book of all time.
6. During the climb, Herzog and Lachenal both suffered severe frostbite on their feet and Herzog on his hands after losing his gloves. Gangrene set in, forcing the expedition doctor to amputate fingers and toes in the field without anesthetic.
7. In 1970 the South Face of Annapurna was first climbed by Don Whillans and Dougal Haston, part of a British expedition led by Sir Chris Bonington.
8. In 1978 the American Women’s Annapurna Expedition, composed only of women, led by Irene Miller and Vira Komarkov, made the first American ascent of the mountain.
9. Annapurna is the most dangerous 8000-meter peak to climb, with an expedition fatality to successful ascent ratio of 38%. For Mount Everest, this ratio is 7.5%.
10. While Mount Everest has been climbed over 2,000 times, Annapurna had only been climbed 142 times by 2007.

14th July: The Matterhorn

On this date in 1865 Edward Whymper and his team were the first to reach the 14,690 foot summit of the Matterhorn. It was Whymper’s seventh attempt. Four of his seven member team died during the descent.

1. The Matterhorn is the sixth-highest summit in the Alps at 4,478m (14,692 ft). It is shaped like a pyramid with each of its four faces facing one of the four compass points. Three of the faces are in Switzerland and the South face is in Italy.
2. It was formed millions of years ago by land masses crashing into each other. It is made of a rock called gneiss, which glitters in the Sun and hence its name, from the Middle High German verb gneist (to spark). It's thought this rock was African in origin.
3. In Italy, the Matterhorn is known as Monte Cervino and in French as Mont Cervin. It has even more different names in some local dialects - Gran Becca and Horu. The name Matterhorn is closely linked to the town of Zermatt. Zermatt means "towards the meadows" and Matterhorn means "Zermatt's Peak". There is some dispute as to whether Cervin and Cervino are derived from the Latin word for forest or for deer.
4. Horace Bénédict de Saussure was the first person to measure the mountain, in 1792 using a sextant and a 50-foot-long (15m) chain. He calculated its height as 4,501.7m (14,769 ft).
5. The first person to climb it was Edward Whymper in 1865. He tried and failed seven times before finally getting to the top with French mountaineer Michel Croz, the Swiss father and son Peter Taugwalder Sr. and Jr., Charles Hudson, Lord Francis Douglas and Douglas Robert Hadow. Sadly, Hadow, Croz, Hudson and Douglas fell to their deaths on the way back down. The rest only survived because the rope holding them together broke. The second ascent was just three days later, from the Italian side by a party led by guides Jean-Antoine Carrel and Jean-Baptiste Bich.
6. Six years later in 1871, Lucy Walker became the first woman to climb the Matterhorn. She did it wearing a long white skirt. Again the feat was repeated days later from the Italian side by Lucy's rival, Meta Brevoort.
7. About 500 people have died trying to climb the Matterhorn. There is a metal cross at the peak to commemorate them. In 2015, a team of mountain guides placed red lights among the ridge to commemorate the first ill-fated climbers.
8. In the late 19th century there was a proposal to build a railway and/or a cable car to the top, but local people objected strongly to it arguing "the peaks of the Alpine mountains are the ideological property of the entire Swiss population and hence are not for sale" to developers.
9. There is a 1/100 scale replica of the Matterhorn in Disneyland, California. It's 147 feet high and has a bobsled ride attached to it. Sometimes, mountain climbers dress up as Mickey Mouse and his friends and climb it.
10. The shape of the mountain was the inspiration behind the unusually shaped Toblerone chocolate bars. The shape was patented by the company so there are no other chocolate bars shaped like this. Since 1960, the Matterhorn has appeared on the packaging. Some people say they can see a Bear hidden in the image.

24th August: Mount Vesuvius

On this day in 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius Erupted destroying Pompeii and Herculaneum. Here are 10 facts about the event.

1. It seems rather coincidental that the disaster happened the day after Vulcanalia, the Roman festival to honour Vulcan, the god of volcanoes and fire (August 23). At this festival, people would build bonfires and sacrifice small animals to protect their crops from forest fires. No doubt the disaster would have suggested to the survivors that Vulcan had been extremely unimpressed with the previous day's sacrifices. The Emperor Domitian (who ruled from 81-96 A.D.) must have thought so, because he built a new altar to Vulcan on the Quirinal Hill and introduced the sacrifice of a bull-calf and a red boar to the sacrifices made on the Vulcanalia.
2. At least, historians have assumed it happened on this date because Pliny the Younger, who wrote the only surviving eyewitness account of the disaster, dated his letter "nonum kal. Septembres" which was interpreted as meaning "the ninth day before the Kalends of September", or eight days before September 1, i.e. August 24.
3. However, "nonum kal. Septembres" wasn't the standard way of writing the date, and more recently, the actual date of the eruption has been questioned by archeologists, who noticed that the victims were wearing warmer clothing than would have been expected in August, and the produce found stored in Pompeii (fresh Olives and dried fruit) suggested it actually happened in October. Further evidence came from the study of weather patterns - the prevailing winds in the area in August would have resulted in different patterns of ash fall. Also, a commemorative coin, which would not have been minted until late September, was found in the purse of one victim.
4. Had the residents of Pompeii had the scientific knowledge we have today, they would have known something was wrong because of the increased number of Earthquakes prior to the eruption. As it was, earthquakes were just a normal part of life for them and they would simply patch up any damage and carry on. Today, volcanologists are constantly monitoring the seismic activity and are confident they would be able to give several months' warning of an eruption on that scale.
5. According to legend, many years before the eruption, Hercules passed through the area while performing his labours. It was described as a "plain of fire" and the volcano as "a hill which anciently vomited out fire". Hercules pacified the giant bandits who lived there before moving on. It's possible that Herculaneum, the other town decimated by the eruption, was named after this legend.
6. The eruption released a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing.
7. 16,000 people died in the disaster. Most of them were anonymous citizens, but well known people who perished were Pliny the Elder (who was organising a rescue party), and Agrippa (a son of the Jewish princess Drusilla and the procurator Antonius Felix) and his wife.
8. Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger, survived - he declined to go on the rescue mission and stayed at home in Misenum, across the bay of Naples, writing his letters - although he did evacuate later in the day and helped his elderly and corpulent mother escape.
9. To this day, the type of eruption that happened that day, with clouds of ash rising for miles, is called "Plinian" after Pliny's description. He described the ash cloud coming out of the mountain as resembling a pine tree.
10. Vesuvius is still active - the only active volcano in Europe. It has erupted several times since 79AD, the most recent eruption being in March 1944. None of the subsequent eruptions were anything like as destructive, although in 1631, volcanic ash reached modern day Istanbul over 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) away.

8th August: Mont Blanc

It was on this date in 1786 that Dr Michel Gabriel Paccard and his porter, Jacques Balmat, reached the summit of Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe at 4,810 m (15,781 ft) above sea level. 10 things you might not know about Mont Blanc:

1. The name Mont Blanc and the Italian Monte Bianco mean "White Mountain". It is also sometimes known as La Dame Blanche (French for "the White Lady") or Il Bianco (Italian for "the White One.")
2. Paccard and Balmat's ascent is said to have marked the beginning of modern mountaineering. Their motivation was no doubt influenced by the fact that Horace-Bénédict de Saussure was offering a prize for the first successful climb.
3. The first woman to reach the summit was Marie Paradis in 1808.
4. There was once an observatory at the summit. Gustave Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower fame, agreed to take on the project if there was a firm foundation to build it on. There wasn't, and he gave up, but the observatory was built anyway in 1893 and lasted until 1909, when a crevasse started to open under it and it had to be abandoned.
5. There have been two plane crashes on the mountain, in 1950 and 1966. Both were Air India flights bound for Geneva.
6. Since 1965, there has been a tunnel underneath it, which connects Chamonix, France and Courmayeur, Italy. It is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes between the two countries. 39 people were killed in a fire in the tunnel in 1999, which led to the tunnel being closed for three years for renovations and safety improvements.
7. In 1886, Theodore Roosevelt led an expedition to the peak.
8. In 1960 pilot Henri Giraud landed a plane on the summit which is only 30m (98 ft) long.
9. Mont Blanc is the location of the highest Toilets in Europe, at a height of 4,260 metres, 13,976 feet. They were taken up by Helicopter, and are also serviced by helicopter.
10. In 2007, twenty people set up a hot tub at the summit.

29th May: Mount Everest Day

Mount Everest day celebrates the anniversary of the 1953 British expedition to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain. Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first men to reach the top of the world on this date.

1. It was 11.30am local time when they got to the top, and after taking photographs and burying some sweets and a small cross on the summit, they turned back, returning in time to send word to England so that the Queen heard about it on the morning of her coronation.
2. Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world at 8,848 metres or 29,029 feet above sea level and the highest point from the centre of the Earth. This is the figure officially recognised by Nepal and China, but there has dispute about this over the years. If you include the height of the snow and ice at the top, the height varies and is almost impossible to measure accurately.
3. The British first became aware of the humongous mountain during a survey beginning in 1802, intended to chart the world's highest mountains. Until 1847, Kangchenjunga was believed to be the highest peak, until Andrew Waugh and John Armstrong spotted a peak that seemed to be higher, which they named "Peak B". Bad weather prevented them from verifying this, and it was not for another two years that James Nicholson returned to take more measurements, but he contracted malaria and didn't finish either, but his calculations were used by Radhanath Sikdar, an Indian mathematician, who in 1856 concluded that Peak B, which had now been renamed Peak XV, was indeed the highest in the world.
4. While it would have been the preference to use the local name for the mountain, there were several different ones, including Deodungha (Darjeeling for "Holy Mountain" and Comolungma ("Holy Mother" in Tibet), Sagarmatha ("Goddess of the Sky" in Nepal) and Shenmu Feng ("Holy Mother Peak" in Chinese). Rather than choose one of these, Waugh decided to offend everyone equally by giving the mountain a new name, Everest, after his predecessor Colonel Sir George Everest. Sir George was opposed to having the mountain named after him, especially since it wasn't possible to write it in Hindi, or for local people to pronounce it. Nevertheless, in the English speaking world, the name stuck.
5. Everest is in the Himalayas, right on the border of Tibet and China - the international border crosses the actual summit point.
6. Now Everest was established as the world's highest mountain, people started attempting to climb it, usually thwarted by altitude sickness and bad weather. In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine gave it a go, but never came back. Mallory's body was found on the North Face in 1999 - there is speculation that he might have made it to the top 29 years before Hillary and Norgay, only to perish on the way down. It was Mallory who uttered the famous words, "Because it is there" when asked why he wanted to climb Everest. It was an exasperated response to a journalist who had been bothering him rather than his actual reason.
7. In 1933, a millionairess called Lady Houston, funded an expedition which tried to plant the British flag on the summit from an aeroplane.
8. In 1975, Junko Tabei from Japan became the first woman to reach the summit. In 1988, Jean Marc Boivin became the first person to descend by paraglider, and Davo Karnicar was the first to ski down in 2000. A year later, Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind climber to ascend. Jordan Romero is the youngest person to climb Everest, aged 13, in 2010. The oldest person to achieve the feat was Yuichiro Miura, at the age of 80. There are two men, Apa Sherpa and Phurba Tashi, who have climbed Everest 21 times each. Since 1978, there has been an ascent every year.
9. No-one has stayed on the summit for an entire day. The record stay is 21 and a half hours by Babu Chiri Sherpa.
10. Since 1922, 219 people have lost their lives in pursuit of the summit. 58 of these people made it to the top but didn't live to tell the tale. 120 of them are still lying on the mountain. "A mountain without danger is not a mountain," commented Reinhold Messner (first to make a solo ascent in 1980) in 2004.

February 23rd: Mount Fuji Day

10 things you may not know about Mount Fuji:

1. Mount Fuji is 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft) high and 30 miles wide. It has a circumference of 78 miles and its crater is 820 feet deep.
2. It is an active volcano, and last erupted in 1707–08. Some scientists have speculated that it could erupt again in 2015.
3. It is one of Japan's "Three Holy Mountains". The others are Mount Tate and Mount Haku. The summit of Fuji is seen as a sacred place. Shintoists consider the peak sacred to the goddess of nature, Sengen-Sama; there is a shrine to her at the top. The Fujiko sect believe the mountain is a being with a soul. Japanese Buddhists believe the mountain is the gateway to another world.
4. It is believed that the first person to climb it was an anonymous monk in 663 AD. Climbing Fuji was forbidden to women until the Meiji Era (late 19th early 20th century). The first non-Japanese person to reach the summit was Sir Rutherford Alcock in September 1868. The first non-Japanese woman climber was Lady Fanny Parkes in 1869.
5. Today, around 100,000 people climb it every year, around 30% of which are foreigners.
6. The climbing season is July to August. Climbing during the winter is discouraged. The ascent takes 8 -12 hours, and it is recommended to tackle it over two days (there are a number of stations on the way up providing overnight accommodation).
7. A Japanese saying suggests that anybody would be a fool not to climb Mount Fuji once—but a fool to do so twice.
8. For 72 years, until 2004, there was a manned weather station on the summit. It was replaced in that year by a fully automated one.
9. There are two small ski resorts on the lower slopes of the mountain, Fujiten and Snow Town Yeti, which have only 6 lifts between them, but claim a variety of runs and snow parks.
10. Ancient Samurai used the base of the mountain as a remote training area.