July 5, 1960 · Léopoldville and across the Congo Theater

Just five days after independence, the soldiers of the Force Publique — still commanded entirely by Belgian officers who told them independence would change nothing for them — mutinied against their white officers. The revolt spread across the country in days, collapsing order, driving out terrified Belgian settlers, and prompting Belgium to send in troops, ostensibly to protect its nationals.

July 11, 1960 · Katanga province (Élisabethville) Theater

As chaos spread, the rich southern province of Katanga — source of most of the Congo's mineral wealth — declared independence under Moïse Tshombe, backed by Belgian officials, the mining giant Union Minière, and white mercenaries. The wealthiest region had broken away, taking with it the revenues on which the whole country depended.

August 1960 – 1961 · South Kasai (Bakwanga) Theater

A second, diamond-rich province, South Kasai, also declared autonomy under Albert Kalonji. Lumumba sent the national army to crush it, and in the fighting his troops massacred large numbers of Luba civilians — killings the UN's Hammarskjöld denounced as bordering on genocide, and which badly damaged Lumumba's standing.

January 17, 1961 · Katanga (Élisabethville region) Theater

Deposed in a constitutional crisis and then in Colonel Mobutu's first coup, Lumumba was placed under UN-guarded house arrest, escaped, was recaptured, and — with the complicity of the United States and Belgium, both of whom feared his Soviet ties — was flown to secessionist Katanga. There he was beaten and shot alongside two aides, and his body dissolved in acid to leave no grave.

September 13–17, 1961 · Katanga (Jadotville) Theater

A company of 150 Irish UN peacekeepers at Jadotville was surrounded by some 3,000 Katangese troops and white mercenaries. For five days the Irish, short of water and ammunition, held off repeated assaults — inflicting heavy losses while suffering not a single man killed — before being forced to surrender when no relief could break through.

September 13–18, 1961 · Katanga and Ndola (Northern Rhodesia) Theater

The UN launched Operation Morthor to end the Katangese secession by force, but the offensive bogged down and the Jadotville debacle followed. Flying to Ndola to negotiate a ceasefire with Tshombe, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed when his aircraft crashed at night in still-unexplained circumstances — long suspected by many to have been shot down or sabotaged.

December 1962 – January 1963 · Katanga (Élisabethville) Theater

After more than two years, the UN finally mounted a decisive offensive, Operation Grandslam, driving into Katanga and overrunning Élisabethville and the mining towns against crumbling resistance. Tshombe capitulated and fled into exile, and in January 1963 the secession of Katanga was ended.

1964 · Eastern Congo (Kivu, Orientale) Theater

A leftist, Lumumbist insurrection — the 'Simba' (Lion) rebellion — swept the east in 1964, its fighters believing magic dawa made them invulnerable. They overran much of the eastern Congo with startling speed. Che Guevara himself would arrive in 1965 to try, and fail, to organise the guerrillas. The government answered with an army stiffened by white mercenaries and Western support.

November 24, 1964 · Stanleyville (Kisangani) Theater

The Simbas had taken hundreds of white and Congolese hostages in Stanleyville, threatening to kill them. In Operation Dragon Rouge, Belgian paratroopers dropped from American aircraft seized the airport and city, rescuing most of the hostages — though the rebels killed dozens as the drop began. A mercenary column arrived by land the same day.

November 24–25, 1965 · Léopoldville Theater

With the country exhausted and its politicians deadlocked in a power struggle between President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Tshombe, the army chief Joseph Mobutu — backed by the West as a bulwark against communism — seized power in a bloodless coup, dismissed the politicians, and made himself ruler of the Congo.