Police kill protesters at Sharpeville during an anti-pass campaign

The former Gold Coast became independent as Ghana, with Kwame Nkrumah as prime minister. The transition followed decades of organizing by workers, veterans, women, and political movements, including...

Malaya became independent after negotiations between the British government, the Alliance coalition, and Malay rulers. Independence arrived during the Malayan Emergency, when colonial authorities used...

In a referendum on Charles de Gaulle’s proposed French Community, Guinean voters overwhelmingly rejected continued association with France. Sékou Touré’s campaign made the vote a direct choice for...

Delegates from independent states and liberation movements met in Accra at the All-African Peoples’ Conference. The gathering linked struggles against colonial rule and racial domination and...

Rebel forces led by Fidel Castro entered Havana after the collapse of Fulgencio Batista’s government. The revolution overthrew a US-backed dictatorship and sought greater control over land,...

The Republic of the Congo became independent from Belgium. At the ceremony, King Baudouin praised Belgian rule; Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba replied that independence had been won through struggle...

The former Italian-administered Trust Territory and British Somaliland joined to form the Somali Republic after separate paths to independence. The union answered a popular pan-Somali project but left...

Five days after independence, Congolese soldiers of the Force Publique mutinied against a Belgian-led command that had not been Africanized. Belgian officers’ insulting insistence that independence...

Moïse Tshombe declared mineral-rich Katanga’s secession shortly after Congo’s independence. Belgium supported the breakaway province and maintained close ties to its mining interests. The secession...

The Mali Federation, formed by Senegal and the Sudanese Republic, broke apart after only weeks of independence. Senegal withdrew amid a political crisis; the Sudanese Republic then proclaimed the...