Born Then1755
Life during the 1755 Lisbon earthquake
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
On 1 November 1755 a great earthquake, followed by a tsunami and fires, destroyed most of Lisbon. The Marquis of Pombal rebuilt the lower city on a grid with early earthquake-resistant buildings. The disaster shook European thinkers' faith in a benevolent order.
Deaths: about 30,000 to 50,000 in Lisbon; more in Morocco and southern Spain.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from scholarly estimates.
Around the same time
- Indian Ocean slave trade 700–1799
- Atlantic slave trade (West Africa) 1501–1799
- Atlantic slave trade (Kongo and Angola) 1514–1799
- Plantation slavery in Brazil 1550–1799
- Tokugawa peace 1603–1780
- Sugar slavery in the Caribbean 1640–1799
- Slavery in the British North American colonies 1660–1799
- 1755 Lisbon earthquake 1755
- Burmese–Siamese War and fall of Ayutthaya 1765–1767
- Bengal famine of 1770 1769–1771
- Spanish missions in California 1769–1799