[August 27] Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia

Local Name: ኃይለ፡ ሥላሴ

Birth Name: Tafari Makonnen

Parents: Makonnen Woldemikael Gudessa and Yashimebet Ali Abajifar

Date of Birth: 23 July 1892

House: Solomon

Spouse(s): Menen, daughter of Asfaw, Jantirar of Ambassel, and Woizero Sehin Mikael

Predecessor: Zewditu

Reign: 1930 – 1974

Summary: A descendant of a distant scion of the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia, Tafari Makonnen actually claimed his maternal descent to determine his right to the throne. At the age of fourteen, he was given the provincial governorship of Selale, where he continued independent studies through numerous schools. He became an acting governor of Sidamo in 1907 and then transferred to rule the more prestigious province of Harar in 1910. It was there that he married his wife, Menen, the niece to the Ethiopian heir, Lij Iyasu. Lij became the emperor of Ethiopia in 1913 but was not crowned or universally recognized. He was possibly Muslim, which put him at odds with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well. In 1916, he was deposed, possibly with the help of Tafari. In the wake of the deposition, Emperess Zewditu was made ruler of Ethiopia while Tafari was declared heir to the throne. He became a co-regent of himself, in a strange twist, and administered Ethiopia while Zewditu ruled the capital city and oversaw the imperial court. As administrator, Tafari oversaw the admission of Ethiopia into the League of Nations in 1923 with the promise to end slavery in his country. Slavery did not in fact end until the early 1930s. Tafari then went on a tour of Europe and the Middle East beginning in 1924. The goal of the mission was to secure a seaport for Ethiopia, but he also wished to open Ethiopia up to a moderate amount of Western modernization. Problems at home forced Tafari back in 1928 where he had to fight with a provincial governor to keep his position. By the end of the conflict, Zewdity feared that her regent was conspiring against her. When a coup attempt failed, Zewditu crowned Tafari king in Ethiopia, though she retained the imperial dignity. The problem of having two monarchs ruling the same country were resolved suddenly in April 1930 when Zewditu died without warning. Tafari ascended the throne and was proclaimed the neguse negest ze-'Ityopp'ya (King of Kings of Ethiopia) and he took the regnal name Haile Selassie, which means "Power of the Trinity." Two years later, he annexed the Kingdom of Jimma to Ethiopia, bringing the country to its current size.

As an initial move, Haile promulgated a new constitution in 1931 that provided for a legislature while retaining power in the nobility. In this new document, only the heirs of Haile Selassie were allowed to inherit the throne, which made many dynastic rivals angry but helped resolve a long debate between   rival branches of the Solomonic dynasty. Problems with Italy soon became the subject of Haile's reign. Determined to conquer Ethiopia after it had lost a war many decades prior against the African state, Benito Mussolini put all his efforts into conquering Ethiopia in 1935. Italy never planned to play fair, utilizing air strikes, carpet bombing, chemical weapons, and psychological terror on the Ethiopian peoples. Haile set up camp in northern Ethiopia, where the mountains provided some refuge. After some initial success in repelling the Italians, Haile was forced to go on the defensive throughout 1936. He finally left for Jerusalem and exile in 1936, leaving a cousin as his regent in Ethiopia. The state was annexed by Italy three days later and King Victor Emmanuel III was proclaimed emperor. Haile met at the League of Nations and proclaimed the outright oppression and slaughter of his people, earning him the title "Man of the Year" by Time magazine. But he gained nothing from it, and many more countries recognized Victor Emmanuel's conquest. Haile settled in Bath, UK, where he remained until 1941. He was restored to the Ethiopian throne in 1942 after Britain removed the British presence from Ethiopia. As his first move, he abolished any semblance of slavery, severely punishing those who practiced it. He also began to centralize and modernize the state, though the nobles resisted at every step in an attempt to retain the feudal system from before the war. Haile attempted to separate Ethiopia's church from the Egyptian patriarchate with some success, and he participated in the Korean War on the side of the Americans. By 1955, he had promulgated a new constitution that allowed for universal suffrage, though most power was still reserved for the emperor. Throughout the 1960s, Haile supported the independence of African states and was the first president of the Organisation of African Unity, a precursor of the African Union. A larger goal of uniting all of Africa never materialized, but was pursued from the mid-1960s onward.

Although Haile Selassie was an immensely popular progressive monarch in international politics, he suffered in Ethiopia. A famine erupted in the early 1970s and killed upwards of 200,000 people. Marxist instigators paid for by Russia may have encouraged the early rebellion against the emperor. Other issues combined to put Ethiopia's empire in jeopardy. Although Haile was able to pacify the people, the military rebelled and deposed the emperor on 12 September 1974. Within months, a grandson of the emperor and two former prime ministers were executed. The government then abolished the Solomonic dynasty. A year later, Haile Selassie was dead, probably due to a successful assassination that was covered up by the government. The government that replaced his, the Derg, fell alongside the Soviet Union in 1991. His bones were uncovered the next year and reburied in 2000 in an imperial-style funeral. The Rastafarian movement, however, denies that the bones are his and believe that Haile Selassie is the messiah. While the emperor was a devout Orthodox Christian, he never criticized or rebuked the Rastafarian movement for proclaiming him their messiah. His son, Amha Selassie, briefly served as emperor but never reigned. He served as the head of the household until 1997. 

Date of Death: 27 August 1975
Successor: Amha Selassie I (as pretender)

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• Eugene II, pope of Rome (827)
• Arthur II, duke of Brittany (1312)
• Chokei, emperor of Japan (1394)
• Sixtus V, pope of Rome (1590)