For over two thousand years, the story of Atlantis was just a myth. Then, in the late 1800s, an American called Ignatius Donnelly became interested in the story and wrote a book called "Atlantis, the Antediluvian World", which became very popular. Ignatius studied the history of floods from Egypt to Mexico and believed that Plato was recording an actual natural disaster. Since then, several books have been written about the lost city.

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Antediluvian: the period of time before the great Flood that occurred in the time of Noah.
A natural disaster: a natural event with catastrophic consequences for living things. Natural disasters include: avalanches, earthquakes, floods, forest fires, volcanic eruptions.