1982 Upper Voltan coup d'état the "Burkinabé Revolution", a process in which Sankara and his new junta attempted to radically transform Upper Volta – soon renamed "Burkina Faso" – according to left-wing revolutionary principles. Sankara would himself be overthrown in 1987 by his old friend Compaoré, who remained in power until the 2014 Burkinabé uprising. 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
French Upper Volta the Mossi people were able to defend their religious beliefs and social structure against forcible attempts to convert them to Islam by Muslims from the northwest. When the French arrived and claimed the area in 1896, Mossi resistance ended with the capture of their capital at Ouagadougou. In 1919, certain provinces from Côte d'Ivoire were united into a separate colony called the Upper Volta in the French West Africa federation. In 1932, the new colony was dismembered in a move to economise; it was reconstituted in 1937 as an administrative division called the Upper Coast. After World War II, the