Flag of Burkina Faso of black, white, and red. These colours represented the three major tributaries of the Volta River, which flows south through the country: the Black Volta, the White Volta and the Red Volta. It is similar to the tricolor flag used by the German Empire from 1871 to 1918. The flag was changed when Upper Volta became Burkina Faso on 4 August 1984. From 1984 until 1997, the official Burkina Faso coat of arms used a revolutionary central crest featuring a mattock crossed with a Soviet AK-47 assault rifle, along with an open book symbolising the importance of education and the
Volta Conference Volta Conference The Volta Conference was the name given to each of the international conferences held in Italy by the Royal Academy of Science in Rome, and funded by the Alessandro Volta Foundation. In the interwar period, they covered a number of topics in science and humanities, alternating between the two. The first conference, held at Lake Como in 1927, led to the public introduction of the uncertainty principle by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. The second conference did not take place until 1932; its topic was "Europe", and it was notable for the participation of a number of mainly