User:Ogopogo/Plinian eruption

Plinian eruption, April 2004, Calgary, Alberta during Mrs. Brown's cooking class at West Calgary High School

• The expression Plinian eruption was first coined by CNN's Rome correspondent Pliny the Younger to describe the ill-fated results of Build the World's Largest Soufflé at Vesuvius, Italy in 79 A.D.

• After that and until the middle part of the 20th century, fortunately for the world's environment, Plinian eruptions were quite rare.

• The first modern-day Plinian eruptions took place from 1946 to 1958 at Bikini Atoll (Micronesia) where there was periodic testing of high-powered Polynesian Bomb cocktails by the Culinary Institute of America and the testing of Chanel No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 by the House of Chanel.

• Nowadays, Plinian eruptions are very widespread in the U.S. and Canada with the universal introduction, in 1959, of introductory cooking classes in high-schools.