I honestly had no idea the 2nd largest earthquake ever recorded was in Alaska, in 1964.

This was a pretty cool read about it.

[link to www.npr.org]

"HENRY FOUNTAIN: Sure. Well, it was a heck of an earthquake. It was the second-most powerful ever recorded, you know, in recorded history - or since they've been recording earthquakes with instruments. It was originally thought to be about the same power as the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. But in retrospect - or shortly thereafter, it was determined it was much, much more powerful.

You know, a rough indication is how long the ground shakes for. And in the San Francisco earthquake, there was a foreshock at first that shook for about 20 seconds. And then the main shocks shook for something like 40 or 45 seconds. So that's about a minute. In Alaska, the ground shook for about 4.5 minutes, which is a really, really long time.

As compared to the Japanese earthquake, the Tohoku earthquake of 2011, the one that killed, I think, about 17,000 people and - you know, it led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster - that one was slightly less powerful."