You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

My name is Greg Jackson.

I'm a PhD holding historian, a professor and the creator of history that doesn't suck.

A podcast that makes legit seriously researched

American history come to life through entertaining stories. Join me for a

chronological telling of the United States story. From the revolution to

fractious civil war, tenacious inventors, brave reformers, and more.

With more than 100 episodes, you can already binge a listen to your way from 1776 to the early 20th century.

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When we think about a gold rush, those of us here in the U.S. at least, most of us tend to think about the

gold rush of 1849. Gold was found out west and suddenly thousands of

prospectors undertook the journey through sweeping plains and and an endless desert. That was the birth of the Old West. Now the West was in reality a bit

less wild than some in pop culture might make it out to be, but gunfights and

cattle rustling and armed gangs battling U.S. Marshals were a reality of the time.

Really it's not that dissimilar from the Golden Age of Piracy.

You have newly claimed territories filled with settlers and lawless men and women looking to strike it rich, robbing people clashing with authorities and clashing with the Spanish, and you have dens of sin that served up drink and women and gambling to anyone that could pay.

Now we would need to switch out the rum for whiskey and the ships for horses, but you know they both had cool boots and fantastic hats, so basically the same thing.

However, those 49ers in 1849 were small timers when it came to gold rushes.

Possibly the greatest gold rush the world has ever known

was that of the first decades of the 16th century.

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