1960 — The Dismissal That Ignited the Congo Crisis

On September 5, 1960, weeks after the Congo's independence, President Joseph Kasa-Vubu announced over the radio that he was dismissing Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba refused, declared the move unconstitutional, and announced that Kasa-Vubu himself was deposed. Parliament backed Lumumba with emergency powers, but army chief Colonel Joseph-Désiré Mobutu intervened nine days later with his own coup.

The crisis set the stage for Lumumba's arrest, his transfer to Katanga, and his assassination in January 1961 — one of the Cold War's most infamous political killings. It also drew in the United Nations' first large-scale peacekeeping mission, ONUC. The young state never recovered its footing.