Southern Rhodesia

Southern Rhodesia was the British colony that became modern Zimbabwe. The British South Africa Company received a royal charter in 1889 to administer and develop territory north of British Bechuanaland, and in 1890 the Pioneer Column established Fort Salisbury, now Harare, as the centre of company administration. The territory was named Southern Rhodesia in 1895. The Ndebele and Shona risings of 1896–1897 were suppressed by company forces and shaped the colony's later land settlement. Company rule ended in 1923, when the white settler population chose responsible government rather than union with South Africa, and Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing colony. From 1953 to 1963 it was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. After the federation dissolved, the colony's white minority government made a unilateral declaration of independence in 1965, which Britain and the United Nations rejected. British rule was briefly restored in 1979, and Southern Rhodesia became independent as Zimbabwe in April 1980. Salisbury, renamed Harare in 1982, remained the capital.