Earthquake Destroys Lima

October 28, 1744

A powerful quake shook the Peruvian capital at dawn; a tsunami followed, wiping Callao from the map and drowning thousands. The viceregal city, already rebuilt from a 1687 earthquake, was left in ruins. The empire of silver's grandest American port would never fully regain its colonial swagger. Rebuilding took decades, and the disaster accelerated Lima's slow decline as South America's unchallenged viceregal capital.