Ethiopia is a landlockedsovereign country located in the Horn of Africa.[1] Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, South Sudan to the south-west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the north-east. Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in the world[2] and Africa's second-most populous nation.[3] Ethiopia has yielded some of humanity's oldest traces,[4] making the area important in the history of human evolution. Recent studies claim that the vicinity of present-day Addis Ababa was the point from which human beings migrated around the world.[5][6][7] Ethiopian dynastic history traditionally began with the reign of Emperor Menelik I in 1000 BC.[8][9] The roots of the Ethiopian state are similarly deep, dating with unbroken continuity to at least the Aksumite Empire (which adopted the name "Ethiopia" in the 4th century) and its predecessor state, D`mt (with early 1st millennium BC roots).[10][11] After a period of decentralized power in the 18th and early 19th centuries known as the Zemene Mesafint ("Era of the Judges/Princes"), the country was reunited in 1855 by Kassa Hailu, who became Emperor Tewodros II, beginning Ethiopia's modern history.[12][13][14][15] Ethiopia's borders underwent significant territorial expansion to its modern borders for the rest of the century,[16][17][18] especially by Emperor Menelik II and Ras Gobena, culminating in its victory over the Italians at the Battle of Adwa in 1896 with the military leadership of Ras Makonnen, and ensuring its sovereignty and freedom from colonization.[17][18] It was occupied by Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy from 1936 to 1941,[19] ending with its liberation by British Empire and Ethiopian Patriot forces. Its eastern border also changed in 1950 from the former 1908 Convention Line to the subsequent provisional administrative line.[20]
^Speaking after his signing the disputed treaty between Ethiopia and Italy in 1889, Emperor Menelik II made clear his position: "We cannot permit our integrity as a Christian and civilised nation to be questioned, nor the right to govern our empire in absolute independence. The Emperor of Ethiopia is a descendant of a dynasty that is 3,000 years old — a dynasty that during all that time has never submitted to an outsider. Ethiopia has never been conquered and she never shall be..."Ethiopia Unbound: Studies In Race Emancipation - p. xxv by Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford
^S. Rubenson, "Modern Ethiopia" in Joseph C. Anene, Godfrey N. Brown, eds. Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A Handbook for Teachers, p. 216.
^Mordechai Abir, Ethiopia: The ERA of the Princes: The Challenge of Islam and Re-unification, p. 183, "The coronation of Teodros is considered by most historians of Ethiopia to be the end of the era of the princes and the beginning of modern Ethiopia."
^ abB. Holcomb & S. Ibssa, The Invention of Ethiopia (Trenton, 1990) (page no?)
^ abJalata, Oromia and Ethiopia: State Formation and Ethnonational ConflictISBN1569022461 (page no?)
^It was decided at the official Paris Conference, that, for Ethiopia, WWII began on 3 October 1935. Other dates aside from 1 September 1939 are used for other countries such as China and Japan, as well. Richard Pankhurst, "Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia: A History of Their Discussion, from the League of Nations to the United Nations (1936-1949)" in Northeast African Studies 6.1-2 (1999). p. 116.
^Irving Kaplan, Area Handbook for Somalia - Volume 550 (1977), p. 22.
