1980 Upper Voltan coup d'état 1980 Upper Voltan coup d'état The 1980 Upper Voltan coup d'état took place on 25 November 1980 in the Republic of Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso). Following a long period of drought, famine, popular unrest and labour strikes, Colonel Saye Zerbo overthrew President Sangoulé Lamizana, another military leader. Zerbo himself would be overthrown only two years later. Upper Volta had gained independence from France in 1960, after which President Maurice Yaméogo set about creating a single-party dictatorship ruled by his own Voltaic Democratic Union. Following several rigged elections and a new austerity budget being instituted, the powerful trade unions rose
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