1982 Upper Voltan coup d'état 1982 Upper Voltan coup d'état The 1982 Upper Voltan coup d'état took place in the Republic of Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso) on 7 November 1982. The coup, led by the little-known Colonel Gabriel Yoryan Somé and a slew of other junior officers within the military, many of them political radicals, overthrew the regime of Colonel Saye Zerbo. Zerbo had previously taken power just under two years prior to his own downfall. Upper Volta, formerly a colony of France, had gone through several coups since independence in 1960. In 1966, the single-party dictatorship of President Maurice Yaméogo had been ended
Volta Prize Fund')", and then in 1887 the "'Volta Bureau'," which later became the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (AG Bell). The prize was discontinued in 1888. The Volta prize was inspired on the earlier French Academy of Sciences prize ""prix du Galvanisme"" (Galvanism Prize) created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801. A Grand Prize of 60,000 francs and a medal of 30,000 francs to be given for discoveries similar to those of Volta and Benjamin Franklin. The Grand Prize never found a deserving recipient. Only four recipients received the 30,000 francs "prix du Galvanisme": Additionally, the