The two recent conflicts ( the First and Second Congo Wars ), which began in 1996, have dramatically reduced national output and government revenue, have increased external debt, and have resulted in deaths of more than five million people from war, and associated famine and disease.

The First and Second Congo Wars saw great destruction of transport infrastructure from which the country has not yet recovered.

** The First Congo War takes place in Zaire from 1996 to 1997, resulting in Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko being overthrown from power on 16 May 1997, ending 32 years of his rule.

First by Stanley who undertook his explorations mainly under the sponsorship of Leopold II, who desired what was to become the Congo as a colony.

* Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Third Edition, New Africa Press, 2006, " Chapter Six: Congo in The 1960s: The Bleeding Heart of Africa ", pp. 147 – 205, ISBN 978-0980253412 ; Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa and America in The 1960s: A Decade That Changed The Nation and The Destiny of A Continent, First Edition, New Africa Press, 2006, ISBN 9780980253429.

These were disbanded by an RPF-sponsored invasion in 1996 that replaced the Congolese president and resulted in the First Congo War.

This became known as the First Congo War.

In 1996, Uganda was a key supporter of the overthrow of Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko in the First Congo War in favor of rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila.

Mobutu was overthrown in the First Congo War by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who was supported by the governments of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.

They played a key role in the run-up to the First Congo War in 1996-7 and Second Congo War of 1998-2003.

The Congo Crisis ( 1960 – 1965 ) was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu.

In 1968 they were due to play Congolese club, Étoile du Congo in the Preliminary round but withdrew from the competition before the matches were played handing Étoile du Congo a walkover, and in 1975 they lost 3-0 on aggregate to Djoliba Athletic Club of Mali in the First round.

In 1960 Irish troops embarked on their first peace-keeping mission in the First Republic of the Congo.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Bechtel established a strong relationship with the rebel leader Laurent Kabila during the First Congo War of 1996-7 in central Africa, compiling " the most complete mineralogical and geographical data of the former Zaire ever assembled, information worth a fortune to any prospective mining or oil firm " and commissioning and paying for " U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite studies of the country and for infrared maps of its mineral potential.

* First All-Africa Games held in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo

Six Flags added rides found in bigger theme parks such as the wooden coaster called Rolling Thunder in 1979, The Buccaneer ( a swinging ship from Intamin ), Roaring Rapids ( now Congo Rapids, an Intamin River Rapids ride ), Parachuter's Perch ( now Parachute Training Center: Edwards AFB Jump Tower, an Intamin Parachute ride ) and Freefall ( later Stuntman's Freefall, an Intamin First Generation Freefall ), all before the park's tenth anniversary.

* First known case of human HIV, in the Belgian Congo.

The ambiguous political and social position of the Banyamulenge has been a point of contention in the province, in the wake of incursion by fleeing Interahamwe forces responsible for the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis into the Kivu region after the liberation of neighboring Rwanda by the Tutsi-led RPF, leading to the Banyamulenge playing a key role in the run-up to the First Congo War in 1996-7 and Second Congo War of 1998-2003.

In November 1996 at the start of the First Congo War, Rwandan government forces consequently attacked the Hutu camps, and forces of the then Zaire government which allowed the insurgency.

The Zaire flag was created as part of Mobutu's attempted re-Africanization of the nation and was used officially until Mobutu's overthrow in the First Congo War.

Since then it has been caught up in the conflict between Hutu and Tutsi people in Rwanda, and their allies in DR Congo, which led to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the First and Second Congo Wars.

When the United States entered the First World War Baker made certain that the Draft Act of 1917 prohibited the sale of liquor to men in uniform and that it provided for broad zones around the camps in which prostitution was outlawed.

The process of cosmopolitanism had begun in earnest about 1912, but the First War and the depression virtually stalled that process in its tracks.

When that was broken up after the First World War, its name was changed once more.

With the birth of the Turkish Republic after the First World War, St. Sophia became a museum, and the ancient mosaics, which were plastered over by the Moslems, whose religion forbids pictures in holy places, have been restored.

and the First World War.

William Joseph Slim, First Viscount Slim, former Governor General of Australia, was the principal British commander in the field during the Burma War.

A decade and a half later, the Polish anthropology student, Bronisław Malinowski ( 1884 – 1942 ), was beginning what he expected to be a brief period of fieldwork in the old model, collecting lists of cultural items, when the outbreak of the First World War stranded him in New Guinea.

Aldous ' near-blindness disqualified him from service in the First World War.

During the First World War Korzybski served as an intelligence officer in the Russian Army.

* 1914 – World War I: First Battle of the Atlantic – two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.

England and Australia were evenly matched until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

* 1801 – First Barbary War: The American schooner captures the Tripolitan polacca Tripoli in a single-ship action off the coast of modern-day Libya.

* 1894 – The First Sino-Japanese War erupts between Japan and China over Korea.

* 1805 – First Barbary War: United States Marines captured Derne under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O ' Bannon.

* 1943 – World War II: First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.

* Albert, Somme a French Commune, site of three battles during the First World War

Aachen was chosen as the site of several important congresses and peace treaties: the first congress of Aachen ( often referred to as Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in English ) in 1668, leading to the First Treaty of Aachen in the same year which ended the War of Devolution.

Fleeing Iran, he arrived in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 1841 — a town that had been occupied by an Anglo-Indian army in 1839 in the First Anglo-Afghan War.

A close relationship developed between Hasan Ali Shah and the British, which coincided with the final years of the First Anglo-Afghan War ( 1838 – 1842 ).

The ensuing 3-year conflict will later be known as the First Opium War.

During the First World War, because of his family connections with both sides and the division of popular opinion, Spain remained neutral.

* 1795 – War of the First Coalition: The British capture Trincomalee ( present-day Sri Lanka ) from the Dutch in order to keep it out of French hands.

* 1842 – Treaty of Nanking signing ends the First Opium War.

In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union ( CPU ), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics.