On this day 82 years ago, the Empress Zewditu died and Haile Selassie was proclaimed Emperor of Ethiopia. Born Lij Tafari Makonnen in 1892, and later known as Ras Tafari Makonnen, upon coronation he took the name Haile Selassie, meaning “Power of the Trinity”. He started making tentative steps towards democracy in Ethiopia, but these were overtaken when Mussolini’s Italian army invaded in 1935-36.
Haile Selassie was exiled from Ethiopia in May 1936, and went to the League of Nations to protest about the Italian invasion and the use of chemical weapons. The League of Nations failed to show much interest, and Haile Selassie spent the next 5 years in exile in England, unsuccessfully trying to obtain support until Italy joined the German side in the Second World War. British and Australian soldiers and Ethiopian patriots led a guerrilla campaign against the Italian occupation forces, and in May 1941 Haile Selassie’s reign was restored.
After the war, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations. A famine and the global oil crisis in 1973 led to unrest, and in 1974 Haile Selassie was deposed by the Derg, a committee of low-ranking military officers and enlisted men. He was imprisoned, and numerous government officials were killed. He died in August 1975, possibly as the result of assassination, and the Derg continued its bloody reign until 1991.