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The Kongo empire exists in what is now modern-day Congo from approximately 1300-1600. A relatively developed society, Kongo has a military and a basic political structure, but due to politcal infighting begins to decline in the 1500s.
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As the Kongo empire is beginning to dissolve, Portuguese explorers first arrive at the mouth of the Congo River, establishing first contact between Kongo and Europe.
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The Atlantic slave trade spreads to Kongo. In the course of the next 300 years, the kingdom becomes a major source of slaves for Portugal and other European nations, and more than 5 million slaves are exported to Brazil.
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Kongo's King Afonso Mvemba a Nzinga sends a letter to the Portuguese King João III, telling him the slave trade is depopulating his country.
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A conglomeration of tribes develops into the Kuba Kingdom in northern Congo and migrates to the southewest. Here they establish an agrarian economy and achieve relative wealth due to their somewhat isolated location. Known for their art and aristocracy, the Kuba rule in relative peace until the 1800s.
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Belgium's King Leopold II makes his first inquiries into the Congo, hiring explorer Henry Stanley to help him lay claim to the land.
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Lasting nearly 100 years between Congo Free State and as a colony proper, Belgium's involvment in Congo has come to be known as one of the most appalling colonial regimes in history.
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Henry Stanley spends nearly three years navigating the waterways of Congo in an attempt to create a trade route between the Congo River and Atlantic Ocean.
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During Stanley's trade mission for King Leopold, he encounters missionary David Livingstone in the town of Ujiji in western Tanzania. Livingstone had fallen out of contact with the outside world for several years, and Stanley's famous words upon spotting him are "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
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Belgium's King Leopold II establishes The Congo Free State, a private corporation administered through a dummy organization called the Association Internationale Africaine, in which he is the sole shareholder and chairman. In fulfilling his colonial ambitions, Leopold oversees the next brutal chapter in Congo's history in which 10 million Congolese are killed.
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Edward Dene Morel, a British journalist, begins to investigate the brutal system of slave labor used by King Leopold to profit from Congo's rubber and ivory. His investigation culminates in the publication of <i>Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Flourishing on the Congo in the Year of Grace, 1906</i>.
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British author Joseph Conrad publishes his novella <i>The Heart of Darkness</i>, which is based on his time as a steamship captain on the Congo River. The book details the atrocities committed under King Leopold's regime. Other writers to tackle the subject are Mark Twain with <i>King Leopold's Soliloquy</i>, and Arthur Conan Doyle with <i>The Crime of the Congo</i>.
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Morel launches the Congo Reform Association, one of the first human rights organizations, in order to expose abuses occuring at the hands of the Congo Free State officials. Morel's work with the association garners him a nomination for a Nobel peace prize in 1924.
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Due to the outraged response over the Congo Reform Association's reports, Leopold is forced to sell control of Congo to Belgium, whose parliament votes to annex Congo as a colony.
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The Belgians drastically expland mining operations to finance their colony. The industrial mining of copper in Katanga province leads to the discovery of diamonds in Kasai and gold in Ituri. The colonial state sells most of these mining rights to private companies, which in turn funnel profits out of the country to Europe.
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The Belgian corporation Société Générale is the largest foreign multinationals operating in Congo. It oversees a huge economic boom, which is fueled by mandatory labor imposed on native Congolese and redistribution of "vacant lands" to the state, who then give it to European companies, white landowners and missions.
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A "civilizing mission" is used as one of the justifications for colonialism - in Belgian Congo, this takes familiar form in the widespread conversion to Catholicism, Western-style education and public health campaigns.
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Following a decade of labor strikes and the emergence of the Congolese spiritual leader Simon Kimbangu, the colonial government grants a limited few Congolese some civil rights and institutes a minimum wage.
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Anti-colonial riots rock Belgian Congo's capital city, Leopoldville, as Congolese across the country make demands for independence. Colonial police lose control of the city for several days, and the death toll climbs into the hundreds. The riots give momentum to a growing liberation movement. <br>See Archival Video of the Leopoldville Riots
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Congo gains independence from the Belgians, and the Mouvement National Congolais, led by Patrice Lumumba, wins the parliamentary elections. Before the handover, Belgium raids Congo's treasury.
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The Congo Crisis (1960–1966) is a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that begins with national independence from Belgium and ends with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu. At various points it has the characteristics of anti-colonial struggle, a secessionist war with the province of Katanga, a United Nations peacekeeping operation, and a Cold War proxy battle between the United States and the Soviet Union. The crisis causes the death of some 100,000 people.
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The new Congolese government asks the United Nations for assistance against external aggression and to help remove Belgian soldiers and foreign mercenaries from the country. The U.N. authorizes one of its first peacekeeping missions in Africa, known as Mission of the United Nations Organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).
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Mobutu Sese Seko, the army's chief of staff, seizes power in a military coup. He suspends parliament and the constitution.
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The plane carrying U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld crashes while en route to peace talks about the conflict in Congo, killing all aboard.
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Mobutu fully seizes power in a CIA-backed coup and brutally cracks down on political rivals, hanging some in public executions. He remains president of Congo for 32 years.
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Mobutu changes his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga - "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake" - and renames the country Zaire. He sides with the United States in the Cold War and allows Congo to be a staging ground for operations against Soviet-backed Angola.
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American boxers Muhammad Ali and George Foreman fight the "Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire. Ali, who wins the fight, says he wants to establish a relationship between African-Americans and Africa.
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After the Cold War, the United States reassesses its relationship to the authoritarian Mobutu and pressures him into multiparty democracy. The National Sovereign Conference spends 15 months assessing the state of the country. Mobutu appoints a transitional government, but remains president and does not relinquish power.
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The Rwandan genocide kills 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus at the hands of Hutu extremists. Refugees and perpetrators alike flood into neighboring Congo, causing a humanitarian disaster.
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The First Congo War begins and ends with the involvment of neighboring Rwanda. Refugees and perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide flee into Congo, setting up incursions over the porous borders, and finally the Rwandan army marches into Congo and helps to install a new leader.
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The Rwandan army, which back an anti-Mobutu rebel group called the Alliance for Democratic Liberation (AFDL), attack the refugee camps and march into the capital, Kinshasa. Congolese dissident Laurent-Désiré Kabila overthrows Mobutu and renames the country Democratic Republic of Congo.
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The largest war in modern African history, it directly involves eight African nations, and about 25 armed groups. By 2008 the war and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II.
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The International Court of Justice (ICJ) gets involved in the inter-African conflict in 1999, when Congo begins proceedings against Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, legally challenging their armed incursions into the country.
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President Laurent Kabila is assassinated by a member of his own staff in what is believed to be a failed military coup. His 29-year-old son Joseph takes office within days.
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A U.N. panel publishes a report concluding that the Congo war has evolved into a conflict over natural resources and recommends sanctions against top military officials and private companies.
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Stemming from the First Congo War - but continuing well after it - micro conflicts between factions inside of Congo, and with neighboring Uganda continue to prevent Congo from stabilizing.
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Conflict between rival ethnic groups, the Lendu and Hema, fuels unrest in resource-rich Ituri province. Because Congo's land ownership policies have changed with each regime, each group has what they see as a legitimate claim to the land. With MUNOC intervention, much of the conflict is eventually pacified, but years of unrest leave the province with no political infrastructure.
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The International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes international cases of human rights abuse, arrests militia leader Thomas Lubanga for the recruitment of child soldiers. This is the first of four ICC cases centered on violence in Congo.
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2010 marks the 50-year anniversary of Congolese independence from the Belgians, but brutal conflicts continue, malnutrition is widespread, and the political structure remains unstable.
