The roots of Ethiopian culture lie in ancient Aksum, one of the greatest kingdoms of African history. During the fourth century, the Emperor of Aksum converted to Christianity. Religious cohesion under a royal family that traced its descent from the biblical Solomon and the Queen of Sheba offset the political difficulties of later Ethiopians, and served to differentiate them from all of their Islamic neighbors. Ethiopians are proud to have successfully resisted European colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. The expansion of the country has brought more Muslim groups into the population, and the Marxist government after 1974 withdrew official support for the Christian church. The capital, Addis Ababa, is a prominent center of pan-African concerns, but local political and climatic difficulties have left Ethiopians little time to develop new avenues for their rich cultural heritage. The Amhara people, although they are no longer the majority of the population, are often assumed to have the representative culture of Ethiopia because of the Amharazation program conducted by Emperor Haile Selassie during much of the 20th century. Amhara is the official language, derived from the ancient Geez of the Ethiopian Orthodox liturgical literature. There are, however, over 75 different local languages spoken in the country that are divided into Semitic (like Amhara), Hamidic, Omotic, and Nilo-Saharan categories. English, French, Italian, and Arabic are spoken as well. The majority of Ethiopians are Oromo, and the majority of Oromo are Sunni Muslims. Overall, nearly half of Ethiopians are Muslim. There are small minorities of animists and Roman Catholics, while the remainder of the population follows the traditional Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a Monophysite Christianity like the Coptic Church in Egypt.
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When I speak about Ethiopia, I face this impossible task to tell the story three thousand years long. There are many wonderful books and websites to learn Ethiopian history -- I have to find a better way to organize it. In fact, I plan to put on this site my notes for the class ANTHR 303 I taught last year. The general outlook of Ethiopian history.
For a full listing of Solomonic dynasty since 13th century, please go to Regnal Chronologies Website with the royal lines of the world. Here are only three emperors before H.S.
* Theodore II..............1855-1868
* John IV...................1868-1889
* Menelek II................1889-1911
* Joshua....................1911-1916
* Haile Selassie............1928-30-1935 d. 1975
* (To Italy.................1935-1941)
* Haile Selassie (restored)......1941-1974 d. 1975
* Dergue (army turned into marxists).....1974-1991
* Tirgey maoists turned into democrats...1991-present
[ all pages in HIM directory were built to give a background to Web-Biography of Haile Sellassie -- history, culture, religions and etc. ]
MENELIK
The father of the present size Ethiopia. 1996 was a centenial of Adwa victory, the first war with Italy and the first victory over European power, which put Ethiopia back on the big history map.
Did you see page 2?
From 100 years of Adwa:
....7000 dead, 2500 wounded. 2400 were taken prisoners. The Italians lost all their artillery.... It was a wrong day for Italy to start a battle....
This is by default a "history" gateway page and I to connect other related pages here... but after all all Sellassie webpages are about history. History of the past century, the end of the millenium...
(c)2004 HIM contents (summary of the HS web-biography) *
Liberty is always unfinished business. --anonymous
