Ethiopia is one of the oldest states in Africa and the world, and except for a period of five years of Italian occupation, it is the only African country that was never colonized by the Europeans. However, we should not be wrong and think that the ancient Ethiopian Empire coincides with the current Ethiopia. The old Empire did not go from being a small and powerful kingdom and it was not until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when thanks to the conquest of numerous kingdoms and independent nations, with a very high cost in human lives and people subjected to slavery , Emperor Menelik II shaped the territory of present-day Ethiopia. (see map)
With the name of Ethiopia, the Greeks designated lands inhabited by black people. In contrast, Abyssinia, the other name that has been called the country, comes from people of Arab origin, who 4,000 years ago settled in areas of modern Ethiopia. Since then, there have been innumerable moments in history where Ethiopia appears as one of the most influential states in the region. From the biblical writings mentioning the Queen of Sheba, actually, Makeda, in the tenth century BC, passing through the kingdom of Meroe, one of whose queens would stop Alexander the Great in his advance through Africa, or the rich kingdom of Axun that from the beginning of the Christian era to the late s. VII would be the main commercial power, managing lands so extensive that they reached the present Yemen.
With the expansion of the Arabs, this hegemony would begin to decline and Ethiopia, a Christian kingdom would be surrounded by countries of Muslim culture. When in the sixteenth century, the Portuguese came into contact with the legendary King Preste Juan, they found a country politically similar to the European feudal states, with three very defined social classes: the nobility, the church and the common people.
At the end of the 19th century, after a period of good relations between King Menelik II and the European powers, Italy tried to occupy it with the resistance of a well-organized Ethiopian army that inflicted on the Italians the main defeats that a colonial army had never suffered. European, being especially remarkable the battle of Dogal, where the Europeans lost 4,000 men of the troop of 10,000 that took.
Menelik II will be the creator of the current Ethiopia. During his mandate (1889-1913), coinciding with the race that the European countries maintain for the maximum occupation of African lands, Menelik II embarks on the same career, but dedicating himself to the conquest of lands around his State. Until those dates, the present Ethiopia was formed by different kingdoms and independent States, or by lands inhabited by innumerable nations without State. Melenik II managed to subdue all these territories, sometimes through agreements but in most cases after cruel wars that left hundreds of thousands of dead and people in slavery, and agree with the United Kingdom, then the other power in the region , mutual respect for agreed borders.
Thereafter the central government devoted itself to changing history and speaking of Ethiopia as one of the oldest states in the world, as the only African country never subjected to colonialism, with a monarchy that lasted 3,000 years, trying to make the historical memory national and international forget that, even today, many of the States and Nations without State, once independent, continue to claim their past independence and many continue to define themselves as colonized countries.
Much of the s. XX was marked by the figure of Emperor Haile Selassie. During his tenure (1930-1974), Ethiopia succumbed to the Italian occupation (1936-1941) of the Mussolini government. In 1962, Ethiopia annexed the former Italian Abyssinia, Eritrea, thus gaining access to the sea. However, it was not able to maintain the use of Eritrean ports for a long time, since from the beginning the Eritrean movements of resistance to such occupation prevented maintaining effective control over them.
In 1974 a military coup ended with the monarchy of Haile Selasie establishing in 1977 a People’s Republic presided over by Mengistu Haile Mariam. His Government, supported by the Soviet Union, clashed with the secessionist armed movements in the provinces of Tigre and Eritrea, and with occasional border clashes with Somalia. Three years of severe drought, economic mismanagement and distrust between the Government and the Western aid agencies caused the most famous of the famines suffered by Ethiopia in 1983. In May 1991 he was forced to resign, taking refuge in Zimbabwe.
The troops of the Revolutionary Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (EPRDF) took over the government of the capital and its leader, Meles Zenawi, assumed the presidency of the provisional government, committing itself to the holding of elections.