Messina earthquake
A Sicilian city in ruins — Russian sailors are first to help
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On 28 December 1908 an earthquake and tsunami levelled Messina and Reggio Calabria, killing an estimated 75,000 to 120,000 people. Sailors of a Russian naval squadron nearby were among the first rescuers and are still remembered in Messina.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Did you know
1908: the Tunguska blast flattened 2,000 km² of Siberian forest, and the Messina earthquake killed some 80,000 people.
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1914–1918 World War I — 6 years later
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — 10 years later
- 1920 League of Nations founded — 12 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — 3 years earlier
- 1908 Tunguska event — same year
- 1917 October Revolution — 9 years later
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — 9 years later
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — 21 years later
Middle East
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — 3 years earlier
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — same year
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — same year
- 1915 Armenian genocide — 7 years later
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 8 years later
Africa
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 23 years earlier
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 22 years earlier
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — 11 years earlier
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — 4 years earlier
- 1922 Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — 14 years later
Asia
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 25 years earlier
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 23 years earlier
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — 14 years earlier
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — 12 years earlier
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — 3 years later
Americas
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — 5 years earlier
- 1906 San Francisco earthquake — 2 years earlier
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — 2 years later
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — 6 years later
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — 21 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 15 years earlier
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 15 years earlier
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 3 years later
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 4 years later
Alive at the time
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 80)
- Thomas Edison (aged 61)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 52)
- Marie Curie (aged 41)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 39)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 38)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 37)
- Winston Churchill (aged 34)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 30)
- Albert Einstein (aged 29)