gold rush

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gold rush Rapid influx of population in response to reports of the discovery of gold. The largest gold rush brought c.100,000 prospectors to California (1849–50). Some of the miners, known as Forty-Niners, went on to Australia (1851–53). There were also gold rushes to Witwatersrand, South Africa (1886), Klondike in the Yukon, Canada (1896), and Alaska (1898).

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