21 JULY AD 365
Alexandria is hit by a tsunami
A megaquake in the Mediterranean wreaks havoc
DANNY BIRD highlights events that took place in July in history
4 JULY 1054
This pictograph found in New Mexico, US, is thought to depict an ancient supernova
Chinese, Islamic and possibly Mesoamerican astronomers observe a strange celestial event. Visible during the day for nearly a month afterwards, it is a supernova (an exploding star), whose remnants will later be called the ‘Crab Nebula’ or ‘SN 1054’.
During the early hours of a summer morning in AD 365, the city of Alexandria, along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, was devastated by an enormous tidal wave.
“Slightly after daybreak, and heralded by a thick succession of fiercely shaken thunderbolts, the solidity of the whole Earth was made to shake and shudder, and the sea was driven away, its waves were rolled back, and it disappeared,” wrote the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus.