Haile Selassie Is Deposed and the Derg Seizes Ethiopia
- Date
- 1974
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
Ethiopia's ancient monarchy ended on 12 September 1974, when a military committee known as the Derg deposed Emperor Haile Selassie, closing a dynasty that traced its lineage back centuries.
The revered eighty-two-year-old ruler—a global statesman and symbol of African independence—had been fatally weakened by army mutinies over pay, spiraling inflation, and above all a devastating 1973 famine in Wollo and Tigray that killed tens of thousands and, once exposed, shattered his image at home. Radical junior officers led by Mengistu Haile Mariam soon abolished the monarchy, embraced Marxism-Leninism, and ruled through terror; Selassie died in captivity the following year under suspicious circumstances. The revolution nationalised land, plunged Ethiopia into years of civil war, insurgency and the Red Terror, and aligned the strategic Horn of Africa nation with the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. The fall of Haile Selassie ended one of the world's oldest continuous monarchies and reverberated across Africa and among the Rastafarian movement, which had revered him as a messianic figure.
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Empires active in 1974
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Dutch Empire1581 CE – 1975 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Iranian RevolutionJanuary–February 1979
- Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika1985–1991 (from 11 March 1985)
- Construction of the Berlin Wall13 August 1961
- Fall of the Berlin Wall9 November 1989
- Revolutions of 1989 across Eastern Europe1989 (Autumn of Nations)
- German reunification3 October 1990
Further reading
The wider story
The Ethiopians: A History
Standard general history of Ethiopia and its dynasties.
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