Brazilian Gold Rush
The first great gold rush of the modern era
In the 1690s bandeirantes, slave-hunters and treasure-seekers from São Paulo, found gold in Brazil's interior. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese poured into the region named Minas Gerais ('General Mines'), along with masses of enslaved Africans. Brazilian gold filled Lisbon's treasury and built Baroque towns such as Ouro Preto, and in 1763 the colonial capital moved to Rio de Janeiro.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 17th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1676 Leeuwenhoek sees microbes — 17 years earlier
- 1683 Battle of Vienna — 10 years earlier
- 1687 Newton's Principia — 6 years earlier
- 1688–1689 Glorious Revolution — 5 years earlier
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1682 Accession of Peter the Great — 11 years earlier
- 1703 Founding of Saint Petersburg — 10 years later
- 1709 Battle of Poltava — 16 years later
Alive at the time
- Louis XIV (aged 55)
- Isaac Newton (aged 50)
- Kangxi Emperor (aged 39)
- Peter the Great (aged 21)
- Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 8)
- Aurangzeb (aged 75)
- Leopold I (aged 53)
- Matsuo Bashō (aged 49)
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (aged 47)
- Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (aged 47)