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Events on Saturday 1 August 1885 1
1885Congo Free State proclaimedLeopold II establishes personal rule over the Congo basinOn 1 August 1885, Belgian King Leopold II formally proclaimed the Congo Free State as his private possession, distinct from Belgium itself. The territory, nominally governed for humanitarian and free-trade purposes under the Berlin Act, became notorious over the following two decades for forced labor and atrocities committed to extract rubber and ivory.