Today we have spun the globe and Wil’s finger landed on Ethiopia. So tonight we embrace the food and culture of this amazing country.
Ethiopia, is situated in the Horn of Africa and is a weathered, landlocked country split by the Great Rift Valley. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, and Somalia to the east, Sudan to the northwest, South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With over approximately 102 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world
Archaeologists have found finds dating back more than 3 million years. Some of the oldest skeletal substantiation for anatomically modern humans has been found in Ethiopia and it certainly is a country of ancient culture. It is widely studied as the region from which modern humans first set out for the Middle East beyond. Corresponding to linguists, the first Afro-asiatic-speaking inhabitants settled in the Horn region throughout the ensuing Neolithic era.
If we were to look back as far as the 2nd millennium BC, it is seen that the governmental system of Ethiopia was a realm for most of its history. Oral history tells us that the Realm was established by the Solomonic empire, also known as the House of Solomon, was the former ruling Imperial House of the Ethiopian Empire. The empire’s members claim patrilineal descent from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
During the first periods AD the Kingdom of Askum upheld a united civilisation in the territory, followed by around the time of 1137 the Ethiopian Empire. Throughout the late 19th century The Scramble for Africa was the occupation, division, and colonisation of African territory by Western European influences during the era of the New Imperialism, between 1881 and 1914. Around 1870 there was only 10% of Africa that was under recognised European influences. By 1914 it had augmented to almost 90% of the region, with only Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and Liberia remaining self-governing and Ethiopia retained its sovereignty against European power.
In 1936 Ethiopia was occupied by Italy and subsequently became Italian Ethiopia, which was part of the Italian East Africa, and they remained there until 1941. Ethiopia was also the earliest independent member from Africa of the 20th-century League of Nations and the United Nations.
In 1974, the Ethiopian empire under Haile Selassie was conquered by the Derg, a communist military government supported by the Soviet Union. In 1987, the Derg formed the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, but it was overthrown in 1991 by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been the governing political union since.