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First payable gold discovered at Ophir in NSW - beginning of the great Australian gold rush
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The rebellion came about because the goldfield workers (known as 'diggers') opposed the government miners' licences. The licences were a simple way for the government to tax the diggers. Licence fees had to be paid regardless of whether a digger's claim resulted in any gold. Less successful diggers found it difficult to pay their licence fees.
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The number of new arrivals to Australia was greater than the number of convicts who had landed here in the previous seventy years. The total population trebled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million.
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'Welcome Stranger' nugget discovered by John Deason and Richard Oates in Moliagul, Victoria. It is the world's largest nugget found to date. The nugget weighed appros. 72kg and measured 60 by 45 by 19 centimetres.
