In 1867 a boy picked up a shiny pebble on a farm beside the Orange River. Within twenty years that accident had produced two of the largest mineral rushes in history, a new city on an empty highveld ridge, and an industrial order built on migrant labour and racial law that outlasted the mines it was designed to serve. This is that chronology; read downward, the way a shaft is sunk.
Sixty-three entries across six threads: the rushes and discoveries, the markets and crashes, the strikes and labour struggles, the legislation, the corporate restructurings, and the disasters. Select a thread to isolate it, or open any entry for detail.