Gold at Witwatersrand
1886
A prospector named George Harrison picked up a chunk of ore on an Afrikaner farm in the Transvaal and recognized reef gold. Within months thousands of fortune hunters - "uitlanders" - were swarming over the veld, and the squalid mining camp of Johannesburg was taking shape. The Boer republics were now very valuable, and the road to war was open.
In context
Also in 1886 (5 other events on record)
- Haymarket Affair · North America · Politics
- Statue of Liberty Dedicated · North America · Culture
- Geronimo Surrenders · North America · War
- Coca-Cola Invented · North America · Culture
- Third Anglo-Burmese War · Southeast Asia · War
Before and after in Africa
Before and after in Politics
Era
Industrial Age (1801–1900), one of 513 events from that era on Saeculum.