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Haile Selassie – Wikipedia

Haile Selassie – Wikipedia

Haile Selassie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Haile Selassie I
Negusa Nagast
Defender of the Faith
Haile Selassie in full dress (cropped).jpg

Haile Selassie in full dress, 1970
Emperor of Ethiopia
Reign2 April 1930 – 12 September 1974[nb 1]
Coronation2 November 1930
PredecessorZewditu
SuccessorAmha Selassie
Prime Minister
Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia
Reign27 September 1916 – 2 April 1930
PredecessorTessema Nadew
SuccessorIjigayehu Amha Selassie
MonarchZewditu
BornRas Tafari Makonnen
23 July 1892
Ejersa GoroEast HarargheEthiopian Empire
Died27 August 1975 (aged 83)
National PalaceAddis AbabaEthiopia
Burial5 November 2000

SpouseMenen Asfaw
Issue
Regnal name
(native) Haile Selassie I (ቀዳማዊ ኃይለ ሥላሴqädamawi haylä səllasé);
(English) “Power of the Trinity”
HouseSahle Selassie (Solomonic -House of Solomon, Amhara Branch)
FatherMakonnen Wolde Mikael
MotherYeshimebet Ali
ReligionEthiopian Orthodox Tewahedo
1st & 5th Chairman of the Organization of African Unity
In office
25 May 1963 – 17 July 1964
Succeeded byGamal Abdel Nasser
In office
5 November 1966 – 11 September 1967
Preceded byJoseph Arthur Ankrah
Succeeded byJoseph-Désiré Mobutu
Imperial standard of Haile Selassie I
Obverse
Reverse

Haile Selassie I (Ge’ezቀዳማዊ ኃይለ ሥላሴromanized: Qädamawi Haylä Səllasé,[nb 2] Amharic pronunciation: [ˈhaɪlə sɨlˈlase] (About this soundlisten);[nb 3] born Ras Tafari Makonnen; 23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975)[4] was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. Prior to his coronation, he had been the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia from 1916. He is a defining figure in modern Ethiopian history.[5][6] He was a member of the Solomonic dynasty who traced his lineage to Emperor Menelik I.

Selassie attempted to modernize the country through a series of political and social reforms, including the introduction of Ethiopia‘s first written constitution and the abolition of slavery. He led the failed efforts to defend Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and spent the period of Italian occupation in exile in England. He returned to lead Ethiopia in 1941 after the British Empire defeated the Italian occupiers in the East African campaign. He dissolved the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which was established by the UN General Assembly in 1950, and integrated Eritrea as a province of Ethiopia while fighting to prevent their independence.

His internationalist views led to Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations.[7] In 1963, he presided over the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, the precursor of the African Union, and served as its first chairman. He was overthrown in a 1974 military coup by a Marxist-Leninist junta, the Derg. Selassie was murdered by the junta on 27 August 1975.

Among some members of the Rastafari movement, Haile Selassie is referred to as the returned messiah of the Bible, God incarnate. This distinction notwithstanding, Haile Selassie was a Christian and adhered to the tenets and liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox church.[8][9] The Rastafari movement was founded in Jamaica in the 1930s and its followers are estimated at between 700,000 and one million.

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