1 00:00:02,279 --> 00:00:06,480 Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Eves, and welcome to this Day in History Class, 2 00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:10,000 Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time. 3 00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:29,680 Speaker 1: Today is January. The day was January hundred. At about 4 00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:33,120 Speaker 1: nine o'clock at night, a magnitude nine earthquake hit the 5 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:39,000 Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. In North America, the Cascadia subduction Zone, a 6 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:42,960 Speaker 1: plate boundary that extends from northern California to Vancouver Island 7 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:48,080 Speaker 1: in British Columbia, had ruptured. It broke at least one 8 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:52,760 Speaker 1: thousand kilometers or six of the boundary between the Wand 9 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:56,720 Speaker 1: of Fuca Plate and the North American Plate. It only 10 00:00:56,760 --> 00:00:59,360 Speaker 1: took about fifteen or twenty minutes for the wave to 11 00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:03,080 Speaker 1: reach the cos to North America, causing massive destruction like 12 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:07,720 Speaker 1: sudden land subsidives and the drowning of coastal forests. And 13 00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:10,200 Speaker 1: while all that devastation was happening on the coast of 14 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:13,640 Speaker 1: North America, the western half of the wave was headed 15 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:19,959 Speaker 1: towards Japan. It reached the island ten hours later. The 16 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:23,040 Speaker 1: tsunami that struck the coast of Japan was devastating and 17 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:30,360 Speaker 1: well documented, but in Cascadia history remained unwritten. Native stories 18 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:34,319 Speaker 1: were passed along through oral traditions, so much of that 19 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:37,760 Speaker 1: history is lost, but folklore from the region at the 20 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:42,560 Speaker 1: time does allude to huge earthquakes and massive flooding. Because 21 00:01:42,640 --> 00:01:45,360 Speaker 1: information couldn't have traveled anywhere near as fast as it 22 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:48,520 Speaker 1: does today. Back then, nobody linked that earthquake in North 23 00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:52,440 Speaker 1: America to the tsunami in Japan until centuries later, when 24 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:56,400 Speaker 1: a seismologist put the pieces together in the nine article 25 00:01:56,560 --> 00:02:01,520 Speaker 1: in the journal Nature. Before that, the seventeen hundred tsunami 26 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:06,120 Speaker 1: in Japan was dubbed the Orphans tsunami. Many of the 27 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:09,520 Speaker 1: stories the native people's told about the earthquakes and tsunamis 28 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:12,920 Speaker 1: can't be linked to the one in seventeen hundred specifically. 29 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:16,639 Speaker 1: After all, the region did have a considerable amount of 30 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:20,440 Speaker 1: seismic activity, and ground shaking and flooding were motifs that 31 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:24,200 Speaker 1: showed up often in tribal stories. But there are some 32 00:02:24,280 --> 00:02:27,359 Speaker 1: stories native people's told that most likely point to the 33 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:31,840 Speaker 1: events since seventeen hundred. For instance, there was a story 34 00:02:31,960 --> 00:02:35,800 Speaker 1: that Agnes Mats, a member of the Talawa tribe, told 35 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:41,480 Speaker 1: cultural anthropologists Cora A. Du Bois in nineteen a grandmother 36 00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:44,360 Speaker 1: had told her grandchildren to run to the top of 37 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:48,040 Speaker 1: a mountain as the waves came, and when the children 38 00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:52,800 Speaker 1: looked back, they saw the water destroying everything. And in 39 00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:56,680 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century Billy Balt, a leader of the Maca tribe, 40 00:02:57,040 --> 00:02:59,359 Speaker 1: talked about how water had received it from the Nea 41 00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:04,280 Speaker 1: Bay and Washington and suddenly came back in submerging quote 42 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:06,680 Speaker 1: the whole of the cape, and in fact the whole 43 00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:11,120 Speaker 1: country except the mountains. So even though there isn't much 44 00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:14,200 Speaker 1: recorded history from the period and we can't be sure 45 00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:17,720 Speaker 1: exactly what happened throughout the region when the earthquake struck, 46 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:21,040 Speaker 1: we can say without much doubt that it was disastrous. 47 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:25,320 Speaker 1: On the other side of the Pacific, the tsunami that 48 00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,640 Speaker 1: hit Japan went from the northeast to the southwest coast 49 00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:33,359 Speaker 1: for anywhere from eight to ten hours. Floodwaters and fires 50 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:38,400 Speaker 1: destroyed homes in Kulagasaki, Crops were damaged in not Suchi, 51 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:42,760 Speaker 1: and into nave A storehouse, moat and farm land flooded. 52 00:03:44,400 --> 00:03:46,720 Speaker 1: These are just some of the recorded stories of what 53 00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:50,960 Speaker 1: happened the day of the tsunami struck. Record Keeping was 54 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,600 Speaker 1: impeccable in Japan and much of the population was literate. 55 00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:58,240 Speaker 1: All the written records come from the island of Hanshu, 56 00:03:58,840 --> 00:04:02,880 Speaker 1: where the capital city Otta was, which is Tokyo today. 57 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:06,520 Speaker 1: But even with all those records, the origin of the 58 00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:11,960 Speaker 1: disaster was unknown. Where had the high waters come from? 59 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:15,040 Speaker 1: At the time, the Japanese people knew that earthquakes could 60 00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:17,920 Speaker 1: cause tsunamis, but most of the people who wrote about 61 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:21,360 Speaker 1: it then didn't call it a tsunami. Instead they called 62 00:04:21,400 --> 00:04:25,159 Speaker 1: it things like flood and high tide. I mean, how 63 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:27,440 Speaker 1: could it have been a tsunami if the earth hadn't 64 00:04:27,440 --> 00:04:32,400 Speaker 1: shook beforehand. For a long while, geologists didn't really know 65 00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:35,920 Speaker 1: that faults in the Pacific Northwest could create quakes so 66 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:39,880 Speaker 1: strong they could ripple over to Japan. But in nineteen 67 00:04:39,960 --> 00:04:43,480 Speaker 1: sixty Nino Mia Saburo linked early earthquakes in Japan to 68 00:04:43,640 --> 00:04:47,840 Speaker 1: Peru in Chile, and by the nineteen eighties, researchers were 69 00:04:47,839 --> 00:04:50,320 Speaker 1: figuring out that the ghost forests and silt layers they 70 00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:53,520 Speaker 1: observed in the region were the result of an earthquake. 71 00:04:55,360 --> 00:04:58,360 Speaker 1: Over the years, scientists managed to narrow the formation day 72 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:01,400 Speaker 1: of the ghost forest using radio carbon dating and tree rings. 73 00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:06,200 Speaker 1: By nineteen eighties seven, geologist Brian Atwater and grad student 74 00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:10,159 Speaker 1: David Yamaguchi had determined that an earthquake happened sometime between 75 00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:17,200 Speaker 1: August in May seventeen hundred. But the ninet Journal article 76 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:20,400 Speaker 1: wasn't the end of the research about earthquakes in the 77 00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:25,400 Speaker 1: Cascadia subduction zone. The thing is, an earthquake happens in 78 00:05:25,440 --> 00:05:28,560 Speaker 1: Cascadia about once every two hundred and forty three years, 79 00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:32,680 Speaker 1: and the likelihood of a major earthquake occurring in Cascadia 80 00:05:32,760 --> 00:05:35,599 Speaker 1: in the next half century is about one in three. 81 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:40,640 Speaker 1: The question now is how to prepare for the inevitable. 82 00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:44,760 Speaker 1: I'm Eve Jeffcote, and hopefully you know a little more 83 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:49,080 Speaker 1: today about history than you did yesterday. If you want 84 00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:52,240 Speaker 1: to know more about the Cascadia earthquake in Japanese tsunami 85 00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:55,440 Speaker 1: of seventeen hundred, listen to the episode of stuff you 86 00:05:55,480 --> 00:05:59,440 Speaker 1: missed in history class called the Orphans Tsunami. You can 87 00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:02,640 Speaker 1: subscribe up to this stand history class on Apple Podcasts, 88 00:06:02,839 --> 00:06:05,839 Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. 89 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:09,560 Speaker 1: Thanks to Taylor Mays for all his production help. We'll 90 00:06:09,600 --> 00:06:10,360 Speaker 1: see you tomorrow.