DRC Historical Events (Africa Project)

By JesseCarter6

  • 1948 (Event #1)

    1948 (Event #1)
    Recognition of worker's rights and the introduction of minimum wages

  • 1955 (Event #2)

    1955 (Event #2)
    Belgian Professor Antoin van Bilsen publishes a "30-Year Plan" for granting the Congo increased self-government.

  • 1959 (Event #3)

    1959 (Event #3)
    Belgium begins to lose control over events in the Congo following serious nationalist riots in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa).

  • 1960 (Event #4)

    1960 (Event #4)
    Patrice Lumumba becomes the new prim minister of the DRC.

  • 1960 (Event #5)

    1960 (Event #5)
    The DRC finally gets its independence from Belgium.

  • 1964 (Event #6)

    1964 (Event #6)
    President Kasavubu appoints Tshombe prime minister.

  • 1965 (Event #7)

    1965 (Event #7)
    Mobutu Sese Seko seizes power.

  • 1972 (Event #8)

    1972 (Event #8)
    Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko passed a law granting Tutsis citizenship. He revoked it in 1981.   

  • 1989 (Event #9)

    1989 (Event #9)
    Zaire defaults on loans from Belgium, resulting in a cancellation of development programs and increased deterioration of the economy.

  • 1997 (Event #10)

    1997 (Event #10)
    Civil war, drawing in several neighboring countries (Africa's first world war).

  • 1998 (Event #11)

    1998 (Event #11)
    Found the HIV virus of AIDS in a 1959 blood specimen from a Bantu.

  • 1999 (Event #12)

    1999 (Event #12)
    The six African countries involved in the war sign a ceasefire accord in Lusaka.

  • 2006 (Event #13)

    2006 (Event #13)
    The DRC runs its presidential elections.

  • 2011 (Event #14 )

    2011 (Event #14 )
    The DRC constitution was last amended.

  • 2017 (Event #15)

    2017 (Event #15)
    In December, the DRC experiences a "mega-crisis", with a conflict having forced 1.7 million people to flee their homes during the year, AID agencies say that the DRC is the worst-affected country by conflict displacement in the world.