In 1913, the British Raj authority established the circuit house in Chittagong which was used as a residential building for government officials.

[1] During the liberation war in 1971, the Pakistan Army chose Chittagong Circuit House as their military base.

From the circuit house area later skeleton skulls of some freedom fighters who were tortured by electric shock in this building were found.

[5] Four days after Ziaur Rahman's death, a proposal to make the building a museum was approved by the ministry of Abdus Sattar.

The museum preserves the site where Ziaur Rahman was killed and the wall where the bullet hit when Colonel shot Zia.

[9] The microphone used by M. A. Hannan and Zia to broadcast the Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence at the Kalurghat Radio Center is preserved in this museum.

[10] On 28 October of that year, AKM Mozammel Haque, the Liberation War Affairs Minister, said in a meeting that official documents related to the conversion of Chittagong Circuit House into Zia Memorial Museum could not be found.

[13] On 22 June 2022, the leaders of the Chittagong metropolitan section of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party demanded that the museum be opened to all, which has been closed for several days so far.