1960 — The Katanga Crisis

On July 11, 1960, just eleven days after Congo won independence, the country's richest province broke away. Moïse Tshombe declared Katanga an independent state, backed by Belgium and the mining companies that controlled its copper. Congo's new prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, appealed to the United Nations for help.

On July 14, the Security Council authorized peacekeepers to restore order. What followed was a brutal three-year crisis: the assassination of Lumumba, Cold War meddling, and the United Nations fighting its first real war. Katanga's secession finally collapsed in January 1963, but the young nation's deep wounds from those first three years ran very deep indeed.