The Republic of Upper Volta is Renamed Burkina Faso.
The West African country was first created in 1958 as a self-governing French colony. It gained its independence from the French in 1960. Between then and 1983, several coups dotted its political landscape. In 1983, a military coup installed Captain Thomas Sankara as the country’s president. He changed the name of the country to Burkina Faso a year later on the coup’s anniversary.