The history of Ethiopia, known to many as Abyssinia, is rich, ancient, and still in part unknown.
Anthropologists believe that East Africa's Great Rift Valley is the site of the origin of humankind.
The first recorded account of the region dates back to almost 5,000 years ago during the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, when the ancient Egyptians sent expeditions down the Red Sea in quest of gold, ivory, incense, and slaves. Ethiopia is the only African country which was not colonized by European colonial forces. It was briefly occupied by the Italians between 1936 and 1941. In recent history, between 1889 and 1913 Emperor Menelik II reigned, fending off the encroachments of European powers. Italy posed the greatest threat, having begun to colonize part of what would become its future colony of Eritrea in the mid 1880s.