The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco, catching most of the city asleep. For approximately one minute, shockwaves buckled streets, shattered water mains, collapsed buildings, crushed hundreds of residents to death and trapped many alive. For the next three days, fires ignited and nearly destroyed what was then the largest city in the American West.

Join us in-person as Matthew Davenport describes the massive devastation and combines history and science to tell the dramatic true story of one of the greatest disasters in American history.

Speaker: Matthew Davenport, author; Julia Flynn Siler, moderator