History of Diamonds - Blood, Monopoly, and the Ring on Your Finger

De Beers built a diamond monopoly and convinced the world diamonds were rare. This diamond history documentary covers the Kimberley diamond rush, Cecil Rhodes and De Beers, the invention of the diamond engagement ring tradition and "A Diamond Is Forever" campaign, blood diamonds and conflict diamonds in Sierra Leone and Angola, the Kimberley Process, De Beers' price-fixing scandal, and the rise of lab-grown diamonds now collapsing the century-old monopoly. Diamonds aren't actually rare — they're common geologically. The scarcity was manufactured after Rhodes consolidated the Kimberley diamond fields in 1888, giving one company control of up to 90% of world supply. From there: the "two months' salary" rule invented by an ad agency in 1947, the blood diamond wars of the 1990s, the 2003 Kimberley Process, De Beers' 2004 guilty plea, and the lab-grown diamond boom now reshaping the industry in 2026. 🔔 Subscribe for more hidden histories of the everyday objects that shaped the world. #HistoryOfDiamonds #DeBeers #BloodDiamonds #CecilRhodes #LabGrownDiamonds #HiddenHistory #DarkHistory