Create a menu file with dynamic tabs

I am trying to make my website's menu in one file only and just include it in the rest of the .html pages. I am copy and pasting the menu each time I make a new page because I want the tab that is active to be highlighted for each different page. This is the reason why I can't make one file only for every page, and I have no idea how can I make it work to set the tab active in each different page.

This is the code I am copy-pasting in each page.

<!-- BEGIN MENU -->
    <section id="menu-area">
        <nav class="navbar navbar-default" role="navigation">
            <div class="container">
                <div id="navbar" class="navbar-collapse collapse">
                    <ul id="top-menu" class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right main-nav">
                        <li><a href="index.php">Home</a></li>
                        <li><a href="404.php">Downloads</a></li>
                        <li><a href="404.php">Media</a></li>
                        <li class="dropdown"><a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle"
                            data-toggle="dropdown">Research <span
                                class="fa fa-angle-down"></span></a>
                            <ul class="dropdown-menu" role="menu">
                                <li><a href="404.php">D3</a></li>
                            </ul></li>
                        <li><a href="team.php">Team</a></li>
                        <li class="active"><a href="contact.php">Contact</a></li>
                    </ul>
                </div>
                <!--/.nav-collapse -->
                <a href="#" id="search-icon"> <i class="fa fa-search"> </i>
                </a>
            </div>
        </nav>
    </section>
    <!-- END MENU -->

In this case the contact tab is highlighted:

<li class="active"><a href="contact.php">Contact</a></li>

If the case is that the home page is active, then I would need to do this:

<li class="active"><a href="index.php">Home</a></li>

I hope I made myself clear, my English is terrible. I appreciate any idea, I am really new at web development.