Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville)
The Republic of the Congo () was a sovereign state in Central Africa that was created with the independence of the Belgian Congo in 1960. From 1960 to 1966, the country was often known as "Congo-Léopoldville" (after its capital) in order to distinguish it from its north-western neighbour, also called the Republic of the Congo or Congo-Brazzaville. With the renaming of Léopoldville as Kinshasa on 1 June 1966, it was known as "Congo-Kinshasa" until 1971.
Timeline of early HIV/AIDS cases
Human blood samples from 1959 and 1960 from Kinshasa, the capital and the largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the Congo River, led scientists to extrapolate the virus back to the early 1900s, likely around 1908 in Africa. Around that time the virus may have been transmitted from another species. Paralleling the HIV discoveries, primate researchers found Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which was widespread among many populations of chimpanzees.