The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755: When 'Everything Happens for a Reason' Broke

What happens when reality breaks the story a civilization tells itself?

On All Saints’ Day in 1755, one of the largest earthquakes in European history destroyed Lisbon. Churches collapsed during Mass. Fires burned for days. A tsunami swept the harbor. Tens of thousands died.

But the true shock of Lisbon wasn’t just physical devastation — it was moral.

For centuries, Europeans believed disasters were messages from God: punishments, warnings, lessons. Lisbon made that explanation feel unbearable. Explaining the earthquake as “divine justice” required blaming worshippers, children, and the poor for their own deaths.

This video explores how the Lisbon earthquake shattered the old providential worldview and helped give rise to modern ideas of reason, skepticism, science, humanitarianism, and responsibility.

Through the reactions of thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, and Hume, and through the experiences of ordinary people, we examine how meaning shifted from explanation to response — from asking why did God do this? to what do we owe each other now?

This is not just the story of a disaster.
It is the story of how modern thought was forced into existence.

Stay curious — and keep the flame of reason and inquiry burning bright.