A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers into the area of a dramatic discovery of commercial quantities of gold. Several gold rushes took place throughout the 19th century in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. Gold rushes helped spur permanent non-indigenous settlement of new regions and define a significant part of the culture of the North American and Australian frontiers. As well, at a time when money was based on gold, the newly-mined gold provided economic stimulus far beyond the gold fields.

The first significant gold rush was in the Appalachians in the United States, followed by the California Gold Rush of 1848–49 in the Sierra Nevada, which captured the popular imagination. The California gold rush led directly to the settlement of California by Americans and the rather rapid entry of that state in the union in 1850. Successive gold rushes occurred in western North America, gradually moving north: the Fraser Canyon, the Cariboo district and other parts of British Columbia, and the Rocky Mountains. The "last great gold rush" was the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada's Yukon Territory (1898–99), immortalized in the novels of Jack London, the poetry of Robert W. Service and films such as Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush.

The Victorian gold rush, which occurred in Australia in 1851 soon after the California gold rush, was the most major of several Australian gold rushes. That gold rush was highly significant to Australia’s, and especially Victoria's and Melbourne's, political and economic development. In South Africa, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in the Transvaal was equally important to that country’s history, leading to the founding of Johannesburg and tensions between the Boers and British settlers.

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Neil Young's After The Goldrush is on next while Kirstie parades her fashion disasters on TV; thank gawd for subtitles
chinacatalba (John Ireland) Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:33:27 -0000
Neil Young's After The Goldrush is on next while Kirstie parades her fashion disasters on TV; thank gawd for subtitles
Expect to see at least three of these monsters on goldRush Rall 2010!! http://bit.ly/5ono34
goldRushRally (goldRush Rally) Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:37:14 -0000
Expect to see at least three of these monsters on goldRush Rall 2010!! http://bit.ly/5ono34
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