The Witwatersrand Gold Rush
A tent camp grows into Johannesburg within a decade
In 1886 the outcrop of the planet's richest gold reef was found on the Langlaagte farm in the Boer republic of the Transvaal. A prospectors' camp grew into Johannesburg, home to some 100,000 people a decade later. By estimates, around 40% of all gold ever mined has come from the Witwatersrand. The struggle for this wealth led to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — 25 years earlier
- 1884–1885 Berlin Conference — 2 years earlier
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — same year
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — 3 years later
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — 19 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 19 years earlier
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — 17 years earlier
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — 9 years earlier
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — 9 years later
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — 19 years later
Middle East
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — 10 years earlier
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — 19 years later
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 22 years later
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — 22 years later
Asia
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 3 years earlier
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 1 year earlier
- 1891 Discovery of Java Man — 5 years later
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — 8 years later
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — 8 years later
Americas
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — 17 years earlier
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — 10 years earlier
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 7 years earlier
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — 2 years later
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — 17 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 7 years later
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 7 years later
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 25 years later
Alive at the time
- Queen Victoria (aged 67)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 58)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 52)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 46)
- Thomas Edison (aged 39)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 33)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 30)
- Marie Curie (aged 19)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 17)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 16)