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Messina

2 stories from this place.

The Cabinet June 26, 2026 · Strait of Messina

The Sicilian Earthquake That Killed Eighty Thousand People in Three Minutes on a December Morning in 1908

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Strait of Messina at 5:20 AM on 28 December 1908, followed by a 12-metre tsunami three minutes later. The combined event destroyed approximately 90% of Messina and substantial portions of Reggio Calabria, killing about 80,000 people. It remains the deadliest earthquake in modern European history.

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The Cabinet June 18, 2026 · Port of Messina, Sicily (point of European arrival)

The Great Mortality

Between 1347 and 1351 a pandemic killed somewhere between a third and half of everyone in Europe. Contemporaries called it the Great Mortality. It was the largest single demographic event in recorded human history.

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