The California Gold Rush was one of the largest mass migrations in American history. After gold was found in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, news spread across the world, and hundreds of thousands of prospectors, the so-called forty-niners, poured into the territory by sea, by the overland trails and across the Isthmus of Panama. San Francisco grew from a small settlement into a major port almost overnight, and California became a state in 1850 without passing through the usual stage of territorial government. The rush enriched merchants and speculators more reliably than miners, and it brought devastating violence and disease to Native Californian peoples. Hydraulic mining later left lasting damage to rivers and valleys.
Before and after
- 1848Der Ring des Nibelungen
- 1848Revolutions of 1848 in the German states
- from 1848 to 1849First Italian War of Independence
- from 12 January 1848 to 4 October 1849European Revolutions of 1848
- 24 January 1848California Gold Rush
- 24 January 1848Gold is found at Sutter's Mill: the California Gold Rush begins
- 2 February 1848Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
- 16 February 1848Birth of Octave Mirbeau
- 21 February 1848Publication of The Communist Manifesto
More in Wars, politics & history
- 4 July 1776United States Declaration of Independence
- 1815Congress of Vienna
- from October 1853 to February 1856Crimean War
- from 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871Franco-Prussian War
- from 1885 to 1914Scramble for Africa
- from 8 February 1904 to 5 September 1905Russo-Japanese War
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.