Zambia History

Zambia - history

Zambia history, Up to 250,000 years old human bones have been found in Kabwe. Acorn farming was introduced around the birth of Christ; in the following millennium, Bantu people immigrated from the north, and in the 1600's and 1700's. other peoples came from Congo and Angola.

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The Bantu people Lozi, Bemba and Lunda created strong kingdoms in western and northern Zambia. Their power built on trade in ivory, copper and slaves; the purchasers were Arab merchants and the Portuguese, as in the early 1500's. got trade contacts to the area. David Livingstone's 1853 Zambia voyages spurred British interest in the area, and European missionaries and settlers began to arrive. The Lozik King Lewanika (c. 1842-1916) entered into an agreement in 1890 with Cecil Rhodes' company British South Africa Company, which was granted rights to exploit raw materials and labor in the area. With brutal funds, the company secured dominion in the vast area, which in 1895 was named Rhodesia after Rhodes. From 1911 it was divided into Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia)); Northern Rhodesia became the British crown colony in 1924. The colony, linked to South Africa by building a railway, became one of the world's largest copper producers and experienced some economic growth, but all power remained concentrated with the few thousand whites in the country. Trade unions were outlawed, but the African working population instead created so-called welfare unions which actively opposed the colonial rule and in 1948 joined the African National Congress of Northern Rhodesia (ANC).

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In 1958, radical leader Kenneth Kaunda broke out of the ANC. He was jailed in 1959, but after his release in 1960, he resumed the struggle for independence at the head of the United National Independence Party (UNIP). Northern and Southern Rhodesia as well as Nyasaland had been united in the Central African Federation in 1953; it was again dissolved in 1963, and by extension, Northern Rhodesia, on October 24, 1964, gained its independence under the name Republic of Zambia and with Kaunda as president following UNIP's convincing election victory earlier this year.

Some economic development occurred in the 1960's, especially based on copper exports. Kaunda's construction of a nation-state was based on his "African humanism", ie. a mixture of Christianity and African tradition. In addition, nationalizations of copper mining industry. In 1973, he made Zambia a one-party state. Kaunda has long had some support for the population, but not least the falling copper prices on the world market from the mid-1970's weakened him. The growing discontent came in the 1980's. expressed in a series of strikes, and many union leaders, including Frederick Chiluba, were arrested. Increased food prices also triggered violent demonstrations against the regime, which culminated in 1990,. At the same time, Chiluba founded the Movement for Multiparty Democracy(MMD) and Kaunda had to bow to the pressure. In 1991, multi-party elections were conducted; Chiluba won convincingly and became new president, and the MMD gained absolute majority in parliament. The following years were marked by strong tensions between MMD and UNIP, which allied with a number of other opposition parties. Kaunda returned as UNIP leader in 1995. He was placed under house arrest and with the help of a new constitutional amendment prevented from running for the 1996 presidential election. UNIP, boycotted the elections in which Chiluba was re-elected. Politically motivated detainees have characterized Zambia in the following years. A series of bomb attacks in Lusaka 1999 were linked to Zambia's involvement in the war-affected neighboring countries of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Politically, there was growing unrest until the presidential election in 2001. President Chiluba tried to run for his third term, but eventually chose not to, after which the ruling party elected Levy Mwanawasa as the top candidate. He was declared winner of the election with 28.7% of the vote, while approximately 71% voted on the other ten candidates. There was evidence of widespread electoral fraud, but the opposition was unsuccessful in the litigation that followed the election. The litigation and unrest in the MMD weakened Mwanawasa's government, but he was re-elected as president in 2006.

In 2008, Mwanawasa died and he was followed later that year by Rupiah Banda, who won the presidential election. In the 2011 election, Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front (PF) took over the presidential post, which he held until his death in 2014. The January 2015 presidential election was won by Edgar Lungu, also from the PF.