On Saturday, November 1, 1755, at 9:40 a.m., the premodern God, along with the Satan-God that is occasionally unleashed to do the dirty work, died in Lisbon. The death of the vengeful and merciless deity of the medieval world, along with the personification of evil, occurred on one of the holiest days, during the holiest moment of the Mass, when the transubstantiation miracle of the Eucharist was transpiring.
The churches of Lisbon were packed as the faithful came to worship on what was then one of the most sacred days of the Catholic calendar—All Saints’ Day. During the Eucharist, disaster struck. A fault along the boundary between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates shifted, triggering an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.5 to 9.0 that rattled the devout Catholic city.
Thousands died under the collapsing churches as they prepared to participate in communion. Survivors ran to the seashore to escape crumbling buildings. There, many more met their deaths from a tsunami triggered by the earthquake.
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