🌿 Gold is found in California (1848)
Where: Coloma, California, USA (Sutter's Mill)
Nearby on the globe: California State Capitol → 🌍 Open the 3D globe
📅 On This Day: January 24
January 24, 1848: Gold is found in California. On 24 January 1848, carpenter James Marshall spotted shiny flakes of gold in the river while building Sutter's Mill in California. As the news spread, huge crowds rushed in from around the world. This "Gold Rush" turned San Francisco from a small town into a big city.
✨ More events on this day
- 1928 🌿 Zoologist Desmond Morris was born; he hosted TV shows about zoo animals and wrote popular books about how animals and people behave.
- 1986 🚀 Voyager 2 made its closest flyby of Uranus, the first and only spacecraft to visit this tilted, blue-green ice giant planet.
- 1990 🚀 Japan launched Hiten, its first probe to the Moon, making Japan the third country, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to send one there.
🧠 Question of the day
Which town grew into a big city in the Gold Rush?
- London
- San Francisco
- Sydney
Show the answer
Answer: San Francisco
🎂 Landmarks that opened on January 24
Questions
What happened on January 24?
January 24, 1848: Gold is found in California. It happened in Coloma, California, USA (Sutter's Mill).
Which landmarks opened on January 24?
Living Shangri-La (opened 2009).
In the game, the "Today on Earth" panel shows this story on its day, with a question to answer and a place to fly to.