Loma Prieta Quake: San Francisco Wakes to Ruin
A magnitude 7.1 quake shatters the San Francisco Bay Area, collapsing the upper deck of the Cypress Street Viaduct and killing 42 people instantly while claiming 57 lives total. This disaster forces California to mandate seismic retrofitting for all major bridges and highways, fundamentally overhauling the region's infrastructure standards for decades to come.
October 17, 1989
37 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on October 17
In 539 BC, King Cyrus the Great of Persia marched into Babylon, liberating the Jewish people from nearly 70 years of exile and issuing what is often regarded as…
Cyrus the Great entered Babylon without a battle. The city's priests had turned against their own king. Cyrus issued a decree allowing exiled peoples to return …
Ricimer defeated the Roman emperor Avitus near Piacenza with help from Majorian. Avitus had ruled for just 14 months. He fled to a church, was made a bishop aga…
Wu Zetian declared herself emperor of China on October 16th, 690, the only woman to ever claim that title outright. She'd been a concubine, then empress consort…
A T8/F4 tornado strikes London, causing widespread destruction and marking one of the most severe weather events in the city's history.
A tornado tore through London on October 17th, 1091, destroying 600 houses and killing two people. Medieval chroniclers said it lifted the roof off a church and…
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