In 1973, Icelanders fought a volcano—and won

On January 23, 1973, the 5,000 residents of the tiny Icelandic island of Heimaey—located in the Westman archipelago just four miles off Iceland’s southern coast—woke up to the Earth splitting open. In the dead of night, a mile-long volcanic fissure ripped through the ground just a half-mile from the town of Vestmannaeyjar, marking the birth of a new volcano named Eldfell.Fountains of molten basaltic lava shot hundreds of feet into the sky, raining ash and glowing, golf-ball-siz