Mount St. Helens lies just 100 miles south of Seattle, Washington, within the million-acre Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Most times the mountain rises up majestically from the treeline, inspiring breathtaking views for campers and hikers. But Mount St. Helens is also an active volcano, and as active volcanoes tend to do, once in very long while the mountain erupts in a devastating explosion, wiping out everything for miles around.

On this day, May 18, in 1980 Mount St. Helens erupted for one of those occasional devastating explosions. Magma had slowly been building up inside the mountain since March, creating a visible bulge on the slope of the mountain and prompting to closure of the area to the public. A moderate 5.1 earthquake was all it took to release those gases.

The escaping gases pulverized everything within a 6-mile radius completely. A thousand feet of the mountain were sheared off, replaced by a mile-long lava crater. More than fifty people were within the vicinity of the mountain — and that figure could have been much higher had the U.S. Geological Survey not taken the precautionary steps of closing it off. In addition to the lives and land lost, the destruction of 200 houses, 27 bridges, 15 miles of railways and 185 miles of highway made it the worst eruption in the history of the United States.