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Leopold announces the establishment of the Congo Free State, headed by himself
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Belgian state annexes Congo amid protests over killings and atrocities carried out on a mass scale by Leopold's agents and his victims were either killed or worked to death
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Belgium begins to lose control over events in the Congo following serious nationalist riots in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa, the capital of Congo)
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Two million Hutu refugees flee Rwanda after genocide ends. Interahamwe rebel militias set up camps in Eastern Congo and attack Rwandan and Congolese Tutsis
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Congo becomes independent with Patrice Lumumba as prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu as president
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Mobutu flees the country. Rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, a follower of Lumumba, declares himself President and restores country's name to Democratic Republic of Congo. Kabila suspected of corruption and loses support. He turns against Rwandan and Ugandan allies, ordering them out of the country
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Second Congo War begins, involving eight African nations and 25 armed groups, 5.4 million war-related deaths between 1998 and 2008
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Nkunda made a treaty that said that the rebels needed to cease fire in the North Kivu province, but National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) declared war on the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR)
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M23 took control of Goma, a provincial capital with a population of one million people, but was requested to evacuate it by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region as DRC government had finally agreed to negotiate with them
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Kasavubu dismisses Lumumba as prime minister, later arrested, and murdered, reportedly with US and Belgian complicity
