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Rise of Kongo empire, centred in modern northern Angola and including extreme western Congo and territories round lakes Kisale and Upemba in central Katanga
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1482 - Portuguese navigator Diogo Cao becomes the first European to visit the Congo; Portuguese set up ties with the king of Kongo.
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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 & other European nations, & 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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Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski born of Polish aristocratic parents in the Russian occupied Ukraine
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Conrad's father, poet and translator Count Apollo Korzeniowski, arrested for patriotic conspiracy
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1870s - Belgian King Leopold II sets up a private venture to colonise Kongo. He stirs up a lot of democratic questions.
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British explorer Henry Stanley navigates Congo river to the Atlantic Ocean.
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Conrad attempts suicide, shooting himself in the chest, but recovers. As a result, his uncle clears Conrad's gambling debts.
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King Leopold II formally acquires Congo territory as his own private property, naming it Congo Free State
Leopold and his army terrorize inhabitants in pursuit of resources. An estimated 10 million Congolese, half the population, die -
Conrad resigns from post on the ‘Otago' to return to London, where he begins writing Almayer's Folly .
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Conrad marries younger local woman Jessie George. He then begins writing The Rescue .
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Conrad publishes The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus'. He becomes acquainted with American novelist Henry James and R. B. Cunninghame Graham, upon whom Conrad will base the character of Gould in Nostromo .
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the first son of the Conrads is born, his name is Borys Alfred
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Heart of Darkness runs serially in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , which Conrad calls simply “ Maga .”
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British author Joseph Conrad publishes his novella The Heart of Darkness, 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 King Leopold's Soliloquy
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1908 - Congo Free State placed under Belgian rule following outrage over treatment of Congolese
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Joseph Conrad dies of a heart attack in Oswalds. He is buried in the graveyard in Cantenbury; on his tomb Conrad's Polish name is engraved: Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski;'
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Belgian Congo gains independence, becoming Republic of Congo with Patrice Lumumba as prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu as president.
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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
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1965 - Mobutu Sese Seko seizes power
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Mobutu changes the country's official name to "Democratic Republic of Congo" to distinguish it from the former French colony "Republic of Congo
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Joseph Mobutu renames the country Zaire and himself Mobutu Sese Seko; also Katanga becomes Shaba and the river Congo becomes the river Zaire.
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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.
