A quiz question · easy
True or false: A prisoner in a Saint-Pierre dungeon was one of only two survivors of the 1902 Mount Pelée eruption.
True. Louis-Auguste Cyparis, a stevedore arrested for fighting two days earlier, survived in a windowless stone cell with one east-facing door — away from the volcano. He was severely burned through the cell's ventilation grate but lived. He was later signed by Barnum & Bailey Circus and toured as 'the man who lived through Doomsday.' The other survivor, Léon Compère-Léandre, was at the southern edge of the city in a thick-walled stone house.
Read the full story →From the story
Two Minutes, Two Survivors On 8 May 1902 a volcano on Martinique destroyed a city of thirty thousand. Two men lived to tell about it. One was in a dungeon.
Daily quiz appearances
Related questions
- True or false: Mrs. O'Leary's cow started the Great Chicago Fire by kicking over a lantern.
- True or false: Edward II of England was killed in 1327 by a red-hot poker.
- What were the circumstances of French President Félix Faure's death in 1899?
- True or false: Frederick, Prince of Wales died in 1751 from being struck on the chest by a cricket ball.