En Español

Gold. People moved mountains to find it. Armies conquered faraway countries to control it. Find out how this glittering, shimmering metal has shaped history.

Don't touch that! It will make you crazy! Bill Adair ignored his boss's warning. He was 19, and it was the first night of his new job at the museum. He opened the dusty box and touched the thin layers of gold foil that lay inside. With that one touch, he caught gold fever. Forty years later, there seems to be no cure in sight.

Adair has devoted his life's work to gold. He has covered thousands of picture frames in gold. He has perched on rooftops to gild the domes of buildings. He has put gold leaf on walls, and ceilings, and even statues of winged horses. What drives him to do this? Gold's glittering beauty.

The gold Adair loves so much formed deep in Earth billions of years ago. Scientists believe that volcanoes may have heated underground water, which melted the gold. Liquid gold then flowed with the water into cracks between rocks. The shiny yellow metal cooled and hardened. In some places, the new veins of gold reached close to Earth's surface.

At the surface, the rushing water wore away the rock below. Over time, a vein of gold showed through, revealing the treasure. Tiny gold nuggets broke loose and settled at the bottom of the stream. There they'd lie, waiting to be discovered. And discovered they were.

About 5,000 years ago, people found bits of beautiful gold in Egypt. It didn't take long for them to catch gold fever. Since then, gold has been discovered at different times all around the world. With each discovery, the fever spikes. And each time the fever rises, the love of gold drives people to do almost anything. Let's look at some golden moments in history.

Egypt, 3,000 B.C. The pharaohs of Egypt surrounded themselves with gold. They ruled from golden thrones and gilded their chariots with gold. They wore gold crowns and jewelry. They even buried mummies in golden masks.

The pharaohs' hunger for gold grew and grew. Soon, small bits of easy-to-find gold were not enough. They dug mines to follow veins of gold, deeper and deeper into Earth.

Gold mining was dangerous work. Miners used fires to crack the rocks. The heat was fierce. Poisonous fumes filled the air. The tunnels were so narrow, miners had to lie on their backs. Small rocks fell on them. Large rocks crushed them. The pharaohs forced slaves to do this risky job. Often, the slaves were captured in war and brought from faraway places to work in the mines.

Egypt traded its gold for valuable items from other countries. Precious wood came from Lebanon. Horses came from Babylonia. Jewelry and other golden objects traveled along the Silk Road. It was a series of trade routes stretching from Egypt all the way to China. Gold was the one thing everyone wanted. That's how gold and gold fever spread.

Turkey, 560 B.C. King Croesus ruled ancient Lydia, which is now western Turkey. He played an important part in spreading gold fever. He came up with a new idea: to mint, or make, coins made of pure gold.

The coins made buying and selling much easier. Gold was the perfect metal to use. It lasts a long time. It's rare, so it's worth a lot. And it's soft, for a metal. People could mold gold into shapes. That's just what Croesus did. He created coins that were the same size, weight, and value. The coins had a lion and a bull stamped on them.

Persia attacked Lydia. Croesus lost his kingdom. But his golden money idea spread across the world, bringing gold fever with it.

Colombia, 1500s In the 1500s, word of an ancient ceremony spread across Europe. The story was told like this: The Muisca king glittered as brightly as the sun. Fine gold dust covered his body. He stood on a raft, piles of sparkling gold at his feet. At the center of the lake, he dropped the gold into the water. Then he dove in to wash the gold off his body. This would make the Muisca's god happy.

Gold hunters asked: Did the golden man have a golden city? The story grew. This city, they thought, had streets paved with gold. They called it El Dorado. Gold fever had struck again.

As a result, Spanish explorers raced to South America. They searched for El Dorado. No luck. But it wasn't all bad news—at least for the explorers. They discovered many South American tribes had gold. They had golden jewelry and art. The explorers wanted that gold badly. They killed or captured many thousands of people just to get it.

Atahualpa was an Inca leader, known as the Sun King. In 1532, Spanish gold hunter Francisco Pizarro found the Sun King's city. Pizarro came with 300 soldiers. The Sun King welcomed Pizarro and his men. Music played. When Pizarro gave a signal, his soldiers fired their guns. They shot 2,000 men and captured the king. Pizarro said he'd set the king free in exchange for a roomful of gold. Pizarro got his gold. Yet he broke his promise and killed the Sun King. Pizarro would do anything for gold.

California, 1848 In 1848, a man saw flecks of gold in a stream in California. "GOLD MINE FOUND!" screamed a newspaper headline. The tiny flecks changed the United States forever. Gold fever took over the country.

Tens of thousands of Americans dropped everything and headed west in search of fortune. They left their families. They moved rocks, dug in mud, and waded in freezing streams. Some got hurt or sick. Others got lucky and found gold. The gold seekers kept coming, hoping they'd be next to strike it rich.

Worldwide, 2009 Today, finding gold is harder than ever. In most mines, workers find specks of gold so small, 40 can fit in the period at the end of this sentence. Miners have to dig up 30 tons of rock just to find enough gold for one ring. Mining has left gashes in Earth. The holes are so big, they can be seen from space! In 1990, gold was discovered in a volcano on an island in Indonesia. Now, the volcano has disappeared. Miners took it apart, rock by rock.

The work in a gold mine still can be deadly, just as it was for Egyptian slaves. Today, many miners use a dangerous liquid called mercury to separate gold from rock. The mercury can poison people and the environment. Even so, the desire for gold keeps growing. In 2007, people around the world bought 2,500 tons (5 million pounds) of gold jewelry!

Today, gold is in demand for more than its shimmering beauty. It's used in computers, cell phones, and telescopes. Astronauts wear visors coated with a thin layer of gold. It protects them from the sun's rays. Doctors are studying ways that gold might help them fight cancer.

The ancient Egyptians may never have dreamed of using gold in these ways. Many years separate the pharaohs from today's miners, scientists, and artists, like Bill Adair. Yet one thing unites them all: gold fever.

Article by Ruth Kassinger. Top-of-page photograph from the National Museum of Afghanistan/© Musée Guimet/Thierry Ollivier. "Gold Fever" appears on page 8 of the Jan.-Feb. 2009 issue.