If such an earthquake happened today, it would be felt from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean and would flatten most of the cities in the Mississippi valley. That, he figured, should get his classmates' attention.
Today, we're getting an exclusive look inside the USS Mississippi, one of the most powerful warships on the planet -- with a crew of around 140 people.
Around 25 times the volume of water that flows in the Mississippi is flowing through the air and this is the 10th so-called atmospheric river to hit California this winter.
But if he wrote about this river today, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn would spend a lot of time walking on the beach. Because in too many places, the not so mighty Mississippi is a fraction of a Twain.
In 1912 America's Supreme Court ruled that a coalition of 14 railroad proprietors had used their joint ownership of a bridge across the Mississippi river, near the St Louis terminal, to unlawfully stifle competition.
For industrial purposes, Pullman was placed strategically to be able to take advantage of the proximity to this lake, existing rail lines, and to connect with the Mississippi River.
If Columbus hadn't brought colonization over to the Americas, then the Iroquois would probably have continued to grow their nation and surround much of the Great Lakes area and the Mississippi River.
These were serious losses for the Confederacy. It already was low on manpower and weapons. But an even greater loss was the control of the Mississippi River.
Flood control measures along the Mississippi River stopped the natural process that left materials from the river in the delta – the low-lying land next to the river.