107 Facts About Haile Selassie

Haile Selassie rose to power as the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia under Empress Zewditu between 1916 and 1930.

Haile Selassie belonged to the Solomonic dynasty, founded by Emperor Yekuno Amlak in 1270.

Haile Selassie, seeking to modernise Ethiopia, introduced political and social reforms including the 1931 constitution and the abolition of slavery in 1942.

Haile Selassie led the empire during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, and after its defeat was exiled to the United Kingdom.

Haile Selassie dissolved the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1950, and annexed Eritrea as one of Ethiopia's provinces, while fighting to prevent Eritrean secession.

Amidst popular uprisings, Haile Selassie was overthrown by the Derg in the 1974 Ethiopian coup d'etat.

Haile Selassie has been criticised for his suppression of rebellions among the landed aristocracy, which consistently opposed his changes.

Haile Selassie's administration was criticised as autocratic and illiberal by groups such as Human Rights Watch.

Haile Selassie's government relocated many Amhara people into southern Ethiopia.

Haile Selassie was known as a child as Lij Tafari Makonnen.

Haile Selassie's given name Tafari means "one who is respected or feared".

Haile Selassie was born on 23 July 1892, in the village of Ejersa Goro, in the Hararghe province of Ethiopia.

Ras Makonnen was the grandson of King Sahle Haile Selassie who was once the ruler of Shewa.

Ras Makonnen arranged for Tafari as well as his first cousin, Imru Haile Selassie, to receive instruction in Harar from Abba Samuel Wolde Kahin, an Ethiopian Capuchin friar, and from Dr Vitalien, a surgeon from Guadeloupe.

The marriage between Menen Asfaw and Haile Selassie lasted for 50 years.

Haile Selassie described his spouse as a "woman without any malice whatsoever".

Haile Selassie pledged to rule justly through her regent, Tafari.

Haile Selassie occupied the same territory as the Empress rather than going off to a regional kingdom of the empire.

Haile Selassie was crowned on 2 November 1930, at Addis Ababa's Cathedral of St George.

Haile Selassie introduced Ethiopia's first written constitution on 16 July 1931, providing for a bicameral legislature.

Haile Selassie issued a generalized mobilization order on 3 October 1935.

Haile Selassie made a solitary pilgrimage to the churches at Lalibela, at considerable risk of capture, before returning to his capital.

Haile Selassie asserted that Italy was employing chemical weapons on military and civilian targets alike.

Haile Selassie failed to get the diplomatic and materiel support he needed.

The League agreed to only partial sanctions on Italy, and Haile Selassie was left without much-needed military equipment.

Haile Selassie spent his exile years in Bath, England, in Fairfield House, which he bought.

The Emperor and Kassa Haile Selassie Darge took morning walks together behind the 14-room Victorian house's high walls.

Haile Selassie stayed at the Abbey Hotel in Malvern in the 1930s, and his granddaughters and daughters of court officials were educated at Clarendon School for Girls in North Malvern.

Haile Selassie spoke out against the desecration of houses of worship and historical artifacts, including the theft of a 1,600-year-old imperial obelisk, and condemned the atrocities suffered by the Ethiopian civilian population.

Haile Selassie continued to plead for League intervention and to voice his certainty that "God's judgment will eventually visit the weak and the mighty alike", though his attempts to gain support for the struggle against Italy were largely unsuccessful until Italy entered World War II on the German side in June 1940.

In 1937, Haile Selassie was to give a Christmas Day radio address to the American people to thank his supporters when his taxi was involved in a traffic accident, leaving him with a fractured knee.

Haile Selassie delivered the address despite his injury, in which he linked Christianity and goodwill with the Covenant of the League of Nations, and asserted that war can be resolved diplomatically.

Haile Selassie issued several imperial proclamations in this period, demonstrating that British military might and the Emperor's popular appeal could be joined in the concerted effort to liberate Ethiopia.

On 18 January 1941, during the East African Campaign, Haile Selassie crossed the border between Sudan and Ethiopia, near the village of Um Iddla.

On 5 May 1941, Haile Selassie entered Addis Ababa and personally addressed the Ethiopian people, exactly five years after the fascist forces entered Addis Ababa.

Haile Selassie urged them not to reciprocate the atrocities they had been subjected to.

On 27 August 1942, Haile Selassie confirmed the legal basis for the abolition of slavery that had been illegally enacted by Italian occupying forces throughout the empire and imposed severe penalties, including death, for slave trading.

Where Haile Selassie actually did succeed in effecting new land taxes, the burdens were often still passed by the landowners onto the peasants.

Between 1941 and 1959, Haile Selassie worked to establish the autocephaly of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

In 1942 and 1945, Haile Selassie applied to the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church to establish the independence of Ethiopian bishops, and when his appeals were denied he threatened to sever relations with the Coptic Church of Alexandria.

Haile Selassie discussed with Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru relating to Asian and African decolonisation, and cooperation between economic and education sectors.

In keeping with the principle of collective security, for which he was an outspoken proponent, Haile Selassie sent a contingent, under General Mulugueta Bulli, known as the Kagnew Battalion, to take part in the Korean War by supporting the United Nations Command.

Haile Selassie compromised, when practical, with the traditionalists in the nobility and church.

Haile Selassie tried to improve relations between the state and ethnic groups, and granted autonomy to Afar lands that were difficult to control.

Haile Selassie maintained cordial relations with the government of the United Kingdom through charitable gestures.

Haile Selassie sent aid to the British government in 1947 when Britain was affected by heavy flooding.

Haile Selassie contributed Ethiopian troops to the United Nations Operation in the Congo peacekeeping force during the 1960 Congo Crisis, per United Nations Security Council Resolution 143.

On 13 December 1960, while Haile Selassie was on a state visit to Brazil, the imperial guard staged an unsuccessful coup, briefly proclaiming Haile Selassie's elder son, Asfa Wossen, as emperor.

The coup spurred Haile Selassie to accelerate reform, manifested as land grants to military and police officials and political groups.

Haile Selassie continued to be a staunch ally of the West, while pursuing a firm policy of decolonisation in Africa, which was still largely under European colonial rule.

Haile Selassie rejected European attempts to draft a separate constitution under which Eritrea would be governed, and wanted his own 1955 constitution protecting families to apply in both Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In September 1961, Haile Selassie attended the Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade, FPR Yugoslavia.

In 1963, Haile Selassie presided over the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, the precursor of the continent-wide African Union.

In 1964, Haile Selassie would initiate the concept of the United States of Africa, a proposition later taken up by Muammar Gaddafi.

On 4 October 1963, Haile Selassie addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Haile Selassie was the only African head of state to attend the funeral.

In 1966, Haile Selassie attempted to replace the historical tax system with a single progressive income tax, which would weaken the nobility who had avoided paying most of their taxes.

Outside Ethiopia, Haile Selassie continued to enjoy enormous prestige and respect.

Haile Selassie visited China in October 1971, and was the first foreign head of state to meet Mao Zedong following the death of Mao's designated successor Lin Biao in a plane crash in Mongolia.

Haile Selassie went to meet Pope Paul VI in 1970 at Vatican City, where they discussed issues regarding both their countries and history.

Haile Selassie was the only person who knew the 'true' scope of things in Ethiopia.

Haile Selassie again went on television to agree to the army's demands for still greater pay, and named Endelkachew Makonnen as the new prime minister.

Haile Selassie was placed under house arrest briefly at the 4th Army Division in Addis Ababa.

On 27 August 1975, Haile Selassie was murdered on the orders of the Derg regime, a fact that was to remain undiscovered for another twenty years.

On 28 August 1975, state media reported that Haile Selassie had died on 27 August of "respiratory failure" following complications from a prostate examination followed up by a prostate operation.

The prostate operation in question apparently had taken place months before the state media claimed, and Haile Selassie had apparently enjoyed strong health in his last days.

Three years after the Derg regime was overthrown, the court charged them with genocide and murder, claiming that it had obtained documents attesting to a high-level order from the military regime to assassinate Haile Selassie for leading a "feudal regime".

In 1992, Haile Selassie's bones were found under a concrete slab on the palace grounds, Haile Selassie's coffin rested in Bhata Church for nearly a decade, near his great-uncle Menelik II's resting place.

Haile Selassie is worshipped as God incarnate among some followers of the Rastafari movement, which emerged in Jamaica during the 1930s.

Haile Selassie is viewed as the messiah who will lead the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora to freedom.

Rastafari faith in the divinity of Haile Selassie began after news reports of his coronation reached Jamaica, particularly via the two Time magazine articles on the coronation before and after the event.

Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on 21 April 1966, and approximately one hundred thousand Rastafari went to Palisadoes Airport in Kingston to greet him.

Haile Selassie arrived at the airport but was unable to come down the airplane's steps, as the crowd rushed the tarmac.

Haile Selassie defied expectations of the Jamaican authorities and never rebuked the Rastafari for their belief in him as God.

Haile Selassie claimed that she saw a stigmata print on the palm of Selassie's hand as he waved to the crowd.

Haile Selassie spoke about his 1966 visit to Jamaica and told Manley that, though he was confused by the Rastafarians' beliefs, he respected them.

In 1948, Haile Selassie donated 500 hectares of land at Shashamane, 250 kilometres south of Addis Ababa, to the Ethiopian World Federation Incorporated for the use of people of African descent who supported Ethiopia during the war.

Haile Selassie was accused by the Derg to have hoarded millions in Swiss banks, claiming Selassie illegally acquired the money from exploiting the Ethiopian people.

Haile Selassie was interested in a modern outlook towards traditional Ethiopian arts, including those of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Haile Selassie addressed Afewerk Tekle, an Ethiopian laureate, when he left for Europe to gain skills to improve Ethiopian art.

Haile Selassie created an art program which enrolled multiple artists, including Agegnehu Engida.

Haile Selassie travelled regularly to Bishoftu to see displays of paintings by Ethiopian artists such as Lemma Guya.

Haile Selassie was impressed by Guya's paintings of Ethiopian military aircraft.

Haile Selassie commissioned the opening of Ethiopia's first Hager Fikir Theater House in 1935 and the National Theatre in Addis Ababa in 1955.

Haile Selassie wrote an autobiography, "My Life and Ethiopia's Progress", covering his years as ruler.

Haile Selassie began the first volume while in exile during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.

Haile Selassie allegedly wrote the second volume towards the end of the war, though it is widely believed that officials assembled the materials and constructed the book.

Haile Selassie awarded Ethiopia the AFCON award when it won its first title.

Haile Selassie supported Ethiopia in the 1960 Olympics and gave Olympian Abebe Bikila with multiple national awards such as the Star of Ethiopia and the Order of Menelik II.

Haile Selassie supported other Ethiopian athletes, such as Mamo Wolde, by writing personal letters to them.

Haile Selassie was an adherent of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Haile Selassie was born Tafari Makonnen; after his coronation, he adopted his baptismal name as his official and legal name.

Haile Selassie participated in the 1966 Berlin Congress for World Evangelism organised by evangelist Billy Graham.

Haile Selassie tried to unify the Oriental Orthodox community extending into Egypt, Armenia, and Syria.

Haile Selassie adhered to the intracontinental and overseas relations between the Orthodox churches, and believed that it would be reasonable to try to move unification forward.

Haile Selassie maintained a good relationship with Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria, Patriarch of the Coptic Church in Egypt.

Haile Selassie recognized concerns from the Muslim community and gave audiences to its respective leaders.

Haile Selassie, being the head of the Royal Family, legally had precedent over all matters within his household.

Haile Selassie contrasted with the Solomonic dynasty and gave more political powers, dukedoms, and government offices to members of his immediate family, including his grandson Rear Admiral Iskinder Desta.

Haile Selassie only wanted to give him an apolitical position as a commissioned officer in the Ethiopian military, and Iskinder was made deputy commander of the Imperial Ethiopian Navy in 1958.

In 1963, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is said to have helped Haile Selassie to put his grandson in the elite Gordonstoun school.

Haile Selassie was able to put his other grandchildren into top schools throughout the US and Europe, such as Columbia University.

Haile Selassie was portrayed as a hero resisting fascist forces and a symbol of hope for Africa, aligning with the Allies during World War II.

Haile Selassie played a leading role in founding Addis Ababa University and the Organisation of African Unity, the latter of which would later become the African Union.

In 1997, Haile Selassie was mentioned in the Ween song Mutilated Lips.

In 2001, Ethiopian pop star Teddy Afro released a song titled "Haile Selassie", depicting its namesake in a nationalistic light.

Haile Selassie appears as a leader of Ethiopia in Civilization V: Gods and Kings.