The rhododendron is named from the Ancient Greek for ‘rose’ and ‘tree.’
On August 16, 2013, Google went down for five minutes and in that time, the global internet traffic dropped by 40%.
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Today is the anniversary of the discovery of gold in the Yukon, an event that triggered the Klondike Gold Rush.
Gold had been discovered elsewhere in the Yukon before, but on August 16, 1896, a particularly rich deposit was found on Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River. The discovery was made by a party consisting of the American prospector George Carmack, his Tagish wife Kate Carmack, her brother Skookum Jim Mason and their nephew Dawson Charlie. There is some disagreement over who actually spotted the gold first, with Skookum Jim often credited with the discovery.
The following day, the party staked four claims on the creek, which was subsequently renamed Bonanza Creek. Within days, other miners had staked much of the surrounding territory. The news eventually travelled south, and when reports of the enormous gold strike reached the outside world in 1897, they triggered one of the great gold rushes in history.
An estimated 100,000 people headed for the Klondike hoping to make their fortunes. The journey was arduous, with prospectors crossing mountain passes carrying huge quantities of food and equipment. Most failed to find significant amounts of gold, while others arrived to discover that the best claims had already been taken.
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| Prospectors with supplies at the Chilkoot Pass c March 1898 |
The gold rush nevertheless transformed the region. Dawson City grew rapidly, and the Yukon developed as a result of the influx of prospectors, traders and entrepreneurs. The discovery is recognised as the event that began the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897–98.
The discovery also had a literary legacy. Among those who travelled to the Klondike was the young Jack London, whose experiences in the region provided material for several of his stories, including The Call of the Wild. Gold, it turned out, was not the only thing people brought back from the Yukon.
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| February 1928 cover of Amazing Stories |
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