It would consume a great American city, kill over 3,000 people and leave the nation reeling from the greatest natural disaster in its history. But the massive San Francisco earthquake of 1906 would also reveal an incredible human story. It's a chronicle of scandalous political corruption, tragic military missteps and moving individual heroism.

Now, told only as National Geographic can, with archival imagery and compelling recreations of the experiences of those who lived through it, this is the inspiring, sometimes shocking tale of the epic catastrophe the world would know as San Francisco's Great Quake.