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The Pacific Mail Steamship Company's SS City of Rio de Janeiro, launched March 6, 1878, was an aging but popular liner on the Pacific, connecting San Francisco with Hawaii, Japan, and Hong Kong. On a routine voyage, she got stuck in a fog bank at Golden Gate, right at the mouth of her home port in San Francisco Bay. On February 22, 1901, she crashed into the rocks at Fort Point and sank within minutes, leaving behind the deadliest disaster in San Francisco history before the Great Earthquake of 1906.

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Sources:
Great Shipwrecks of the Pacific Coast by Robert Belyk
The San Francisco Call Archives
The San Francisco Examiner Archives

This disaster was widely covered by local San Francisco newspapers, providing numerous detailed eyewitness accounts and images. I highly suggest checking them out if you're interested!

Music sourced from Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referra...

Chapters:
0:00 San Francisco Fog
2:02 Chapter 1: An Unlucky Career
6:23 Chapter 2: Disaster at Golden Gate
10:47 Chapter 3: Lodged on the Rocks
14:51 Chapter 4: Sudden Chaos
19:16 Chapter 5: The City Wakes to Tragedy

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