Lisbon Earthquake

    A couple of weeks ago, John Oliver did a funny bit about Google Search about how when you write in a subject, topics related to that subject pop up on the screen to help shortcut your search.  These suggested topics were supposedly the most popular searches done by others.  He used the example of writing “moon.” into Google.  His pop-ups were really funny.  I just tried it and got four suggestions:  Moon Phases, Moonrise Kingdom, moonshine, and Moon Palace Cancun.  It is bizarre to think that those are the most popular topics that people are looking for when they type “moon” into Google.

    I read a lot of historical fiction.  I was reading a novel yesterday about a Jewish man in Lisbon during the middle 1750’s who was struggling against the Inquisition.  The author seems to have done a lot of historical research before writing the novel.  I came to a very exciting scene where the main character was finally in a life and death confrontation with the main inquisitor and suddenly there was a huge earthquake which destroyed the city.

    The situation in the novel almost seemed too convenient and contrived, I had never heard about any big earthquake in Lisbon even though earthquakes have always been an interest of mine, and I thought I knew about all of the big ones.   My curiosity took me to Google to see if there was any record of a big earthquake in Lisbon.

    I typed in “Lisbon” and as you can see by the screenshot above, the number four suggestion from Google was “lisbon earthquake.”  That amazed me even more than finding out there really was a huge earthquake (Richter 8-9) in Lisbon in 1755.  What surprised me was that this earthquake that I had never heard of was the 4th most popular search under “Lisbon”--either that or Google has so much information about me that they know what it is I am looking for.

You can see my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca