"The impact of tsunami on human society can be traced back in written history to 1480 B.C., in the eastern Mediterranean, when the Minoan civilization was wiped out by such waves.

Japanese records documenting such catastrophes extend back to A.D. 684. North and South American records have dated such events back to 1788 for Alaska and 1562 for Chile. Records of Hawaiian tsunami go back to 1821.

While most of the destructive tsunami have occurred in the Pacific Ocean, devastating tsunami have also occurred in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. A large tsunami accompanied the earthquakes of Lisbon in 1755, that of the Mona Passage off Puerto Rico in 1918, and at the Grand Banks of Canada in 1929."

Citation source: http://www.drgeorgepc.com/TsunamiImpactSociety.html