If you’re reading this in the morning on November 25, the first thing you should do is make sure nothing breakable is near the edge of a shelf or table or counter. Because for some reason, today seems to have a particular affinity to earthquakes.
The first one we have any records of was in 1343 near Naples, Italy. The quake itself was centered under the ocean, but it caused a tsunami that wiped out the ships in Naples harbor and went on to swamp entire ports along the southwestern coast of Italy. We know about the event because the Renaissance poet Petrarch was aboard a ship in the area — luckily far enough out to sea that the tsunami didn’t sink it — and wrote a letter about it. Not being egotistical in the least, Petrarch collected his own letters and published them in 24 volumes.
Petrarch got the idea for collecting and publishing his letters when he discovered a collection of letters by Cicero, the ancient Roman politician. He published Cicero’s collection, and the letters were popular enough among Italian scholars to kick off the Italian Renaissance. Keep in mind that “publishing” in the 1300s amounted to hiring some scribes to make copies by hand; the printing press was still a century in the future.
Petrarch didn’t publish all of his letters; some he omitted because he thought they’d be criticized. We know about this because, of course, he wrote about it in a letter that he published. However, a letter in the 14th century was not something you’d just discard; they were written on parchment, which was valuable enough that you’d keep it just for the material. If you had to, you could scrape the ink off and use it again. Petrarch’s omitted letters were often saved by the people he sent them to, and 59 of them were collected and published by someone else (Giuseppe Fracassetti, if you must know) in the 1800s.
In between the 14th and 19th centuries there was time for more November 25 earthquakes. There was a major one in 1678 in what’s now Azerbaijan. No tsunami this time; it wasn’t anywhere near an ocean. But it was a major quake, and destroyed the city of Shamakhi. Not for the first or last time, either — the city is known for earthquakes, and since it was first mentioned in records around the first century CE, it’s been wrecked and rebuilt not two, not three, but eleven times. It’s still there today — and my advice is to avoid arguments with the residents; the history of the place suggests they might be a bit stubborn.
The next November 25 earthquake was in 1759, in the eastern Mediterranean. It was the Ottoman Empire in those days; now it’s part of Lebanon. It was a monster of a quake, and destroyed a whole series of villages in the Beqaa Valley, about 20 miles east of Beirut. There’s quite a bit of information about this one, because Patrick Russell, a Scottish doctor, was working in a British factory in Aleppo, Syria, which was close enough that the quake was felt there, but far enough away that nothing was destroyed. Russell collected news about the quake and its effects and told his brother, who eventually told John Kitto, who included all the information in his 1841 book Palestine: the Physical Geography and Natural History of the Holy Land.
If Kitto’s book had been about earthquakes in general, he could have included the November 25 quake close to the coast of Sumatra in 1833. Most of the damage was caused by a tsunami, but there isn’t much information about exactly what the effects were — possibly because it was so bad that there weren’t many people left to record the details. The closest city was Bengkulu, and although it wasn’t destroyed, the few records left claim that it lasted five minutes — which is a lot for an earthquake. We can only estimate how strong a tremor it was, but it might have exceeded 9 on the moment magnitude scale (which replaced the old Richter scale in the late 1970s). Another way to explain a magnitude of 9 could be “freaking gigantic.”
November 25 earthquakes headed back to Azerbaijan in 2000, and not too far away from Shamakhi (which, as you know, they’d rebuilt again). This one was just offshore the city of Baku. It was a double tremor; there was one, then a couple minutes later another. This quake wasn’t gargantuan, and Baku wasn’t destroyed. “Only” about 90 buildings were damaged, including a palace dating from the 1400s. Possibly the biggest effect was that since the quake, buildings taller than nine floors have been banned in Baku.
So for the rest of today, stay out of the way of large bookcases that could tip over on you, when you go into any room take note of the best table or desk to duck under for safety, and make sure your collection of fragile china is stored safely. Because while you never know with earthquakes, there might be something about November 25…
