A history of mining in South Africa (ZA)
M M ining in South Africa has been a contentious issue since 15yearold Erasmus Stephanus Jacobs discovered South Africas first diamond, the Eureka, in Hopetown in 1867. It kickstarted what historians call the Mineral Revolution, which made few European opportunists wealthy beyond measure, and saw hundreds of thousands of men leaving their homes to become fulltime mineworkers.