1958: Patrice Lumumba founds the Movement National Congolais (MNC), which becomes the most dominant political party of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

1960-1965: Political turmoil engulfs The Democratic Republic of Congo. Lumumba is assassinated by forces loyal to Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko, who eventually takes over the government in 1965.

1971: Seko renames the country the Republic of Zaire and asks Zairean citizens to change their names to African names.

1997: Seko is overthrown by Laurent Kabila and Rwandan-backed rebels, who "re- rename" the country the Democratic Republic of Congo.

2000: Political unrest continues in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

1956: Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" is published and embraced by the counterculture. In the poem, Ginsberg calls for America to wake up from its middle-class, sterile slumber that crushes the human soul and to end the "human war" on its own people.

1997: Ginsberg dies at 70. The Beat culture, for which...