History Today: The 1906 earthquake that shook, burnt and reshaped San Francisco

On April 18, 1906, a sound similar to ‘the roar of 10,000 lions’ filled the air as the ground shook in San Francisco, California. A powerful 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck the city and triggered a massive fire. Around 3,000 people were killed, and buildings across the city crumbled. Also on this day in 1983, a suicide car bomb exploded outside the US embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people and leaving the building nearly destroyed

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