| The 1963 Skopje earthquake killed hundreds and destroyed Macedonia’s capital, but it came with an unusual silver lining. The rumbling began just before sunrise and lasted all of 17 seconds. But within that quarter-minute, the fate of Skopje, a centuries-old city at the crossroads of southern Europe, was altered forever. Hit by a 6.1 magnitude earthquake, more than 1,000 people were killed and several thousand more wounded. Around 75 percent of the city was either leveled or seriously damaged, and Yugoslavia’s socialist government was overwhelmed by the destruction. Now picture the rest of the world on July 26, 1963: The Soviet Union led the space race, stoking Western fears that the communist empire would win the Cold War; Berlin, along with much of Europe, was freshly divided by an Iron Curtain; and just nine months earlier, the Cuban missile crisis had brought the world’s two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. Times, in short, were tough. | 
