Otago Gold Rush Otago Gold Rush The Otago Gold Rush (often called the Central Otago Gold Rush) was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand. This was the country's biggest gold strike, and led to a rapid influx of foreign miners to the area - many of them veterans of other hunts for the precious metal in California and Victoria, Australia. The rush started at Gabriel's Gully but spread throughout much of Central Otago, leading to the rapid expansion and commercialisation of the new colonial settlement of Dunedin, which quickly grew to be New Zealand's largest city.
San Francisco Fire of 1851 San Francisco Fire of 1851 The San Francisco Fire of 1851 (May 3–4, 1851) was a catastrophic conflagration that destroyed as much as three-quarters of San Francisco, California. During the height of the California Gold Rush, between December 1849 and June 1851, San Francisco endured a sequence of seven bad fires, of which this was the sixth and by far the most damaging. In terms of property value, it did three times as much damage as the next most destructive of the seven fires. Around 11 pm on the night of May 3, 1851, a fire (possibly arson) broke out