Shaking Up History: Top 7 Unbelievable Fun Facts About the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906

1. Giant Earthquake Hopscotch

Talk about a major shift in the landscape - quite literally! In 1906, San Francisco's streets and fences turned into a giant game of hopscotch courtesy of Mother Nature: during the infamous earthquake, the ground west of the San Andreas fault moved so much that roads, fences, and rows of trees and bushes were offset by several yards. The record-breaking jump? A whopping 21 feet for the road across the head of Tomales Bay.
Source => pubs.usgs.gov

2. L.A.'s Divine Shimmy Dodge

The City of Angels did a divine shimmy dodge in 1906: While the San Francisco earthquake caused catastrophic damage and was felt as far as central Nevada, it surprisingly failed to create even a slight tremble in Los Angeles or Oregon.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

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=> Fun Facts about The-Chicago-Fire

3. Orange-Protected Gold Treasure

When life gives you oranges, stash your gold underneath them: During the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, A.P. Giannini, the president of the Bank of Italy, cleverly hid $80,000 in gold and silver coins under crates of oranges, drove past looters, and set up a makeshift bank from which he made loans to locals "on a handshake," ultimately transforming his Bank of Italy into Bank of America.
Source => occ.treas.gov

4. Wine-Fueled Firefighting

When life gives you grapes, make wine; when life gives you an earthquake, use the wine: The quick-thinking Italian immigrants of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco saved their neighborhood from the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire by using their homemade wine to douse the flames, creating fire breaks, and employing buckets of water and other tools to ensure their survival while other parts of the city succumbed to destruction.
Source => npr.org

5. General Godzilla's Oops Moment

When General Frederick "Fire Fighter" Funston decided to use his inner Godzilla to extinguish the flames of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906: His decision to commandeer the Presidio, declare martial law, and demolish buildings to create firebreaks ended up exacerbating the situation and even led to looting by soldiers who should've been helping, swiping from refugees and shops instead.
Source => sf.curbed.com

6. Berkeley: Earthquake Bounce-Back Heroes

When life shakes you to the core, you turn to Berkeley: The University of California Berkeley had a major hand in helping the city bounce back from the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake; not only did their students, faculty, and staff promptly become pillars of support in relief and recovery, but the institution also aided in retrofitting architectural designs and amassing a wealth of knowledge through its Seismological Laboratory, becoming a world-renowned epicenter in earthquake science.
Source => newsarchive.berkeley.edu

7. Stanford's Collapsing Collegiate Dreams

Talk about an extreme example of dodging a collegiate disaster: just as Stanford University was pompously putting the finishing touches on their brand new Library and Gymnasium in 1905, little did they know that the 1906 San Francisco earthquake would come along and topple their scholarly ambitions! In an ironic twist of fate, the Chemistry Building, already in use since 1903, survived the shake-up with only minor damage, although it's been closed since 1988 due to building booboos and shaky foundations.
Source => quake06.stanford.edu