The Lisbon earthquake struck the Portuguese capital on the morning of All Saints' Day, when many people were in church. Its magnitude is estimated to have been around 8.5 or higher, and it was followed by a tsunami that swept up the Tagus estuary and by fires that burned for days, destroying much of the city. Tens of thousands of people are thought to have died, in Lisbon and along the coasts of Portugal, Spain and Morocco. The minister Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, later the Marquis of Pombal, directed the rebuilding, with a regular grid of streets and buildings designed to resist earthquakes. The disaster also troubled European thinkers, and Voltaire reflected on it in a poem and in Candide.
Before and after
- 23 August 1754Birth of Louis XVI of France
- 20 September 1754Birth of Paul I of Russia
- 1755Discovery of magnesium
- 12 January 1755Founding of Lomonosov Moscow State University
- 1 November 17551755 Lisbon earthquake
- 2 November 1755Birth of Marie Antoinette
- 17 November 1755Birth of Louis XVIII of France
- 27 January 1756Birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- from 17 May 1756 to 15 February 1763Seven Years' War
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- 23 January 15561556 Shaanxi earthquake
- c. 1580Eruption of Billy Mitchell
- c. 1660Eruption of Long Island
- from 2 September 1666 to 6 September 1666Great Fire of London
- 25 May 17511751 Concepción earthquake
The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 18th century.