Public holidays in Rhodesia weekend". Shangani Day was replaced as a public holiday by Occupation Day in 1920, but continued to be unofficially marked thereafter. Occupation Day, held on 12 September each year, marked the anniversary of the arrival of the Pioneer Column at Fort Salisbury in 1890, and their raising of the Union Jack on the kopje overlooking the site. It was renamed Pioneers' Day in 1961. Southern Rhodesia effectively became the entirety of Rhodesia in 1964 when Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia. After Southern Rhodesia's colonial government unilaterally declared independence from Britain on 11 November 1965, the anniversary became celebrated as
Northern Rhodesia Northern Rhodesia Northern Rhodesia was a protectorate in south central Africa, formed in 1911 by amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia. It was initially administered, as were the two earlier protectorates, by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), a chartered company on behalf of the British Government. From 1924 it was administered by the British Government as a protectorate under similar conditions to other British-administered protectorates, and the special provisions required when it was administered by BSAC were terminated. Although under the BSAC charter it had features of a charter colony, the BSAC's treaties with