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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

12. A Tsunami Wave Swept Away Earthquake Survivors Praying For Divine Help

The 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. Life After 40

Shaken and frightened survivors of the Lisbon earthquake sought to escape the fires and falling debris. So they rushed towards the harbor, where the large open squares of the royal palace promised safety from both conflagration and collapsing buildings. There, they were further alarmed when they encountered the incongruous sight of a harbor without water, with ships resting on the seabed.

Gathering in the drying silt of the harbor’s bottom, the survivors were led by priests in fervent prayers, beseeching God’s mercy and forgiveness of whatever sins had occasioned such divine wrath. Many were still praying and begging God’s mercy in the harbor when the sea returned with a vengeance: a tsunami, with a wall of water 40 feet high, swept in and drowned them.

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.