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Curated playlist

States and territories established in 1960

  • Burkina Faso14 minBurkina Faso sits at the heart of West Africa, entirely landlocked, ringed by six countries and a history that refuses to be still. On the 4th of August 1984, a young army captain named Thomas Sankara renamed this nation from the Republic…
  • Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville)6 minBelgium took control of the Congo Free State in 1908. This marked a shift from personal possession by the Belgian king to official colonial rule. Conditions improved for some Congolese people under this new administration. Colonial doctors…
  • Senegal12 minSenegal occupies a singular position on the map of Africa: it is the westernmost country on the entire mainland of the Old World, the very edge of Afro-Eurasia where the Atlantic Ocean begins. From the Cap-Vert peninsula, where the capital…
  • State of Katanga24 minThe State of Katanga declared its independence from Congo-Léopoldville on the evening of the 11th of July 1960, when Moïse Tshombe accused the new central government of communist leanings and dictatorial rule. Tshombe led CONAKAT, the…
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo10 minThe Democratic Republic of the Congo holds enough cobalt to power the world's electric cars, yet ranks 171 out of 193 countries on the Human Development Index in 2023. This is a country of staggering contradictions. Its untapped mineral…
  • Gujarat13 minGujarat stretches along the western coast of India with a coastline of about 2,340 km - the longest in the country. Most of that shore wraps around the Kathiawar peninsula, a wedge of land that juts into the Arabian Sea and has shaped…
  • South Kasai13 minSouth Kasai was born on the 9th of August 1960, when Albert Kalonji, standing in the neighbouring territory of Katanga, declared a new state into existence. It would last barely two years. And for most of the world, it would never…
  • Maharashtra13 minMaharashtra sits at the heart of the Indian subcontinent, a state so large and so populous that it ranks as the fourth-most populous country subdivision on the planet. It is bordered on the west by the Arabian Sea, and the plateau it…
  • Ivory Coast16 minIvory Coast holds a distinction that few nations on earth can claim: it supplies more cocoa beans to the world than any other country. Every chocolate bar, every truffle, every cup of cocoa traces a supply chain that runs back to this West…
  • Nigeria8 minNigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with more than 242 million people, making it the sixth-most populous country in the world. It sits in West Africa, between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. Its…

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