Today in History, May 18th
On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington State, killing 57. Plus Plessy v. Ferguson and India's first nuclear test.
Published · Last updated
May 18 is best known for 1980, when Mount St. Helens in Washington State erupted, tearing off its north face and killing 57 people. The date also saw the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson ruling in 1896 and India’s first nuclear test in 1974.
The big story: Mount St. Helens erupts (1980)
For two months the mountain gave fair warning. Earthquakes started rattling its north flank on March 20, 1980, and a week later small blasts of steam and ash began. By April a bulge more than a mile wide was swelling on the side of the peak, pushing outward by as much as six feet a day, and hundreds of people were moved out of the area. At 8:32 a.m. on May 18, an earthquake of about magnitude 5.0 shook the whole north face loose. It became one of the biggest landslides ever recorded, and the sideways blast that followed flattened roughly 10 million trees. A column of ash shot more than 12 miles into the sky and later drifted around the globe. Fifty-seven people died, along with thousands of animals. The peak, once 9,680 feet tall, ended up more than 1,000 feet lower, with a horseshoe-shaped crater. In 1982 Congress set the mountain aside as a protected area for research.
More events on May 18
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1783 | The first United Empire Loyalists, Americans who had sided with Britain in the Revolution, landed at Parrtown (now Saint John), in what became New Brunswick, Canada. |
| 1860 | The Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln for president on the third ballot, with Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as his running mate. |
| 1863 | Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant closed in on Vicksburg, Mississippi, beginning the siege of the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. |
| 1896 | In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-1 to uphold a Louisiana law requiring separate railroad cars for Black and white passengers, endorsing “separate but equal.” |
| 1910 | Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet. Doomsday fears proved unfounded. |
| 1917 | Congress passed the Selective Service Act, giving the president power to draft men for World War I. |
| 1926 | Famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished from Venice Beach in Los Angeles, setting off a huge search by plane and ship. |
| 1974 | India set off its first nuclear device in the Rajasthan Desert at Pokhran, becoming a nuclear power. |
| 2012 | Facebook raised $16 billion in its initial public offering, the largest tech IPO in U.S. history up to that time. |
Born on May 18
- 1883: Walter Gropius, German architect who led the Bauhaus school, born in Berlin.
- 1920: Karol Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II, born in Wadowice, Poland.
- 1952: George Strait, American country singer, born in Poteet, Texas.
- 1970: Tina Fey, American comedian and writer of 30 Rock, born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.
Sources
- Mount St. Helens erupts, History.com
- This Day in History: May 18, History.com
- On This Day: May 18, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Walter Gropius, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Pope John Paul II born, History.com
- George Strait, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Tina Fey, Encyclopaedia Britannica
