← Back to the front page

Historic Disasters That Were Way Worse Than People Think

Khalid Elhassan April 6, 2020 33 min

Yellow River - 1887 Yellow River flood — 1887 Yellow River Flood. Hakai Magazine

10. The Earthquake That Temporarily Interrupted the Crusades

The city of Aleppo in northwestern Syria lies on a geologic fault line that separates the tectonic Arabian Plate from the African Plate. The friction between those plates renders Aleppo and the surrounding region particularly susceptible to devastating seismic events. On October 11^th, 1138, in the midst of the Crusades, one of history’s worst earthquakes shook northern Syria. It killed about 230,000 people in Aleppo, its environs, and the surrounding region.

Aleppo was a bustling and vibrant medieval city. In the mid-twelfth century, however, the region was ravaged by war as the recently formed Crusader states, such as the nearby Principality of Antioch, vied with the neighboring Muslim states. Aleppo, then part of the Zengid Sultanate, was at the forefront of the anti-Crusader resistance, protected by strong walls and a powerful citadel.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.