Zambia was named after the River Zambezi.

The skull of "Rhodesian Man" was found in Kabwe in 1921. The cranium is thought to be around three hundred thousand years old. It belongs to the species Homo heidelbergensis.

Archaeological excavations have shown that early man lived near the Victoria Falls and the Kalambo Falls.

Dr David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary and explorer, named the Victoria Falls after the British queen.

The Victoria Falls became a World Heritage site in 1986.

The local name for the Victoria Falls is Mosi oa Tunya which means the smoke that thunders.

The second highest waterfall in Zambia is the Kalambo Falls.

Livingstone, named after the Scottish explorer, was the capital of Northern Rhodesia until the capital was moved to Lusaka in 1935.

Cecil Rhodes' British South African Company controlled Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).

For centuries before the European discovery of the Copperbelt, the local people mined copper on a small scale. It was used as currency and to make decorative objects.

In 1902 William Collier discovered copper in Luanshya when he was out hunting.

Africa's largest open cast mine is in Chingola.

The Copperbelt Museum can be found in Ndola, an important commercial town in the Copperbelt.

Zambia, a major producer of emeralds, mines a significant percentage of the world's annual production.

At the end of the 1950s the Zambezi was dammed at Kariba to provide hydroelectric power to Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Lake Kariba on the River Zambezi is one of the world's largest man-made lakes.

In 1961 the United Nations Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, died in a plane crash near Ndola, Zambia.

Zambia became a republic in 1964.

After independence Zambia kept ties with Britain through the Commonwealth.

In 2002 around thirteen million people in Southern Africa faced severe food shortages. Countries particularly affected were Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.