Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day April 18th, 1906, the Great San Francisco earthquake, about a 7.9 on the

Richter scale. The quake lasted some 50 seconds, almost a minute, and in the end it devastated San Francisco,

leaving more than 3,000 people dead and destroying more than 28,000 buildings,

that is, get this, more than 80% of the structures in the city at that time.

The quake ruptured the San Andreas Fault to the north and south of the city a total of

296 miles and could be felt all the way up to Oregon, all the way down to Los Angeles and inland, all the way to Central Nevada.

Its impact has been well covered. Obviously the city was devastated.

Seismology learned a ton from the event or a political history show so maybe

we'll focus a little bit on that part of the fallout but luckily every big story has big political

fallout so plenty to discuss here as always Nicole

Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wesley hello there.

Hello Jody. Hey there. I suppose this is a little glimpse into how far in advance we record these episodes,

but we happen to be recording today on the day that there was a small little earthquake,

maybe not that small, maybe not that little earthquake here in New York City.

I'm like everyone is talking about it but just a few

hours ago on the day we were recording. I didn't feel it. I was walking home. I was on the sidewalk.

I didn't feel it at all. And then I saw like neighbors come out onto the street and they were like,

whoa, that was a big one, that was a big one. And then I get home and my wife was like, did you feel that?

And you know, and then text messages, Twitter's going crazy, I turn on WNYC, the Brian Lera shows, like interrupting, you know, I somehow did not feel it at all,

but I was just walking on the street I guess. But you know, it was a 4.8, I think is what they're saying.

...