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King Leopold II ascended to the throne in 1865
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During 1876 King Leopold II organizes the International African Association
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During the year 1878 Henry Morton Standley completed a journey in the region of the Congo. Upon his return King Leopold II hired him to help his interests in the region.
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After rivalry over the unclaimed land of the Congo Basin, Otto Von Bismarck convened a 14-nation conference to settle the rivalry in November of 1884. A larger portion of the settlement was given to King Leopold II to be made into the Congo Free State.
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The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the Association Internationale Africaine. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the government of Belgium annexed the area.
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First Year the Governor-general and his administration resided in Boma
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1,187
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In 1904, Leopold II was forced to allow an international parliamentary commission of inquiry entry to the Congo Free State.
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By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic maneuvers led to the end of Leopold II's personal rule and to the annexation of the Congo as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo.
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The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the Association Internationale Africaine.[6] The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the government of Belgium annexed the area.
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Belgian Goverment takes over the Administration
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The government of the Belgian Congo was arranged by the 1908 Colonial Charter. Executive power rested with the Belgian Minister of Colonial Affairs, assisted by a Colonial Council.The Belgian Parliament held authority over the Belgian Congo, with the highest ranking being the Governor-general.
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On 18 October 1908, the Belgian parliament voted in favor of annexing the Congo as a Belgian colony.
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Baron Théophile Wahis (November 1908 – May 1912)
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1,928
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Félix Alexandre Fuchs (May 1912 – January 1916)
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The Belgian Congo was directly involved in the two world wars. During World War One, an initial stand-off between the Force Publique and the German colonial army in German East-Africa turned into open warfare with a joint Anglo-Belgian invasion of German colonial territory in 1916 and 1917 during the East African Campaign.
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Eugène Joseph Marie Henry (January 1916 – January 1921)
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The Force Publique gained a notable victory when it marched into Tabora in September 1916 under the command of general Charles Tombeur after heavy fighting.
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3,615
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the 1920s turned the Belgian Congo into one of the leading copper ore producers worldwide
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Maurice Eugène Auguste Lippens (January 1921 – January 1923
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Martin Joseph Marie René Rutten (January 1923 – December 1927)
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Colonia Capital moves to Léopoldville. The Congo was split into four parts, Léopoldville, Equateur, Orientale and Katanga. Each division had a vice-Governor-general.
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Auguste Constant Tilkens (December 1927 – September 1934)
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the Katanga mining region via rail and river transport to the Atlantic port of Matadi were connected.
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the MNC established itself in October 1958 as a national political party that supported the idea of a unitary and centralised Congolese nation after independence
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17,676
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he export-based Belgian Congo economy was severely hit by the world crisis, because of the drop of international demand of raw materials and agricultural products
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In 1932 the Congo was split into six parts and the vice-Governor-generals became provincial governors. Each Province was divided into districs controlled by a territorial administrator and assisted by one or more assistants.
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Pierre Marie Joseph Ryckmans (September 1934 – July 1946)
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In 1936 it was recorded that there were 728 administrators controlling the Congo from Belgium. Belgians living in the Congo had no say in the government and the Congolese did not either. No political activity was permitted in the Congo whatsoever. Public order in the colony was maintained by the Force Publique, a locally recruited army under Belgian command.
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17,536
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After the occupation of Belgium by the Germans in May 1940, the Congo declared itself loyal to the Belgian government in exile in London to continue the war on the Allied side in the Battle of Britain.
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Eugène Jacques Pierre Louis Jungers (July 1946 – January 1952)
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A ten-year plan was launched in 1949. It put emphasis on house building, energy supply and health care infrastructure. The ten-year plan ushered in a decade of strong economic growth,
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In the 1950s, metropolitan troops began being posted
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39,006
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Léon Antoine Marie Pétillon (January 1952 – July 1958)
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In 1953, the Congolese were granted the right to buy and sell private property in their own names
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The first university in the Belgian Congo, the Catholic University of Lovanium, near Léopoldville, opened its doors to black and white students in 1954
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69,813
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In 1956 a state university was founded in Elisabethville
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In 1957 the colonial government organised in three urban centres (Léopoldville, Elisabethville and Jadotville) the first municipal elections in which Congolese people were allowed to stand for office and cast their vote.
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Henri Arthur Adolf Marie Christopher Cornelis (July 1958 – June 1960)
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88,913
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Rebellion ran through the Congo
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In September 1960, President Kasa-Vubu declared prime minister Lumumba deposed from his function
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in 1997 Mobutu was chased from power by a rebel force headed by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who declared himself president and renamed Zaïre into the Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Assassinated in 2001, Laurent-Désiré Kabila was succeeded by his son Joseph Kabila
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In 2002 Belgium officially apologised for its role in the elimination of Lumumba
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In 2006 Laurent-Désiré Kabila was confirmed as president through the first nation-wide free elections in the Congo