Jameson Raid

December 29, 1895

At Cecil Rhodes's instigation, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson led five hundred men on a botched raid into the Transvaal, hoping to spark an uitlander rising in Johannesburg against the Boers. It failed ignominiously; Jameson was captured in two days. The scandal forced Rhodes from the Cape premiership and made the Second Boer War almost inevitable.