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The Old World’s Medieval Untouchables and Other Random Historical Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 17, 2020 33 min

Pancho Villa - Mexican Revolution — General Pancho Villa before a firing squad in 1912. Wikimedia

13. The Earthquake That Devastated Lisbon on All Saints Day

In the eighteenth century, Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, was one of Europe’s wealthiest cities and busiest seaports. On the morning of November 1^st, 1755, just as it began celebrating the religious festival of All Saints’ Day, Lisbon was almost completely demolished by a powerful magnitude 9.0 earthquake, whose shocks were felt as far away as Finland, North Africa, and the Caribbean.

Striking around 9:40 AM, the upheaval opened fissures nearly 20 feet deep in the city’s streets. Because of the religious festival, a significant percentage of the population were gathered in churches and cathedrals when the tremors began, and thousands were crushed to death as the houses of worship collapsed atop them. As the tremors subsided, another danger arose as fires erupted around the city, first individually, then joining together to transform Lisbon into a giant inferno. Then things got worse.

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.