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Dashed edge = started before, or continues beyond, this day
Events on Thursday 16 August 1906 1
1906The Valparaiso earthquakeChile's great port, flattenedAn earthquake of roughly magnitude 8.2 destroys Valparaiso, then the most important port on the Pacific coast of South America. Around three thousand die and the city burns for days. Valparaiso is rebuilt, but the opening of the Panama Canal eight years later removes the reason ships came round Cape Horn at all, and it never recovers its position.