Ras Tafari Makonnen served as regent under Empress Zewditu and brought Ethiopia into the League of Nations in 1923. On her death he was crowned Haile Selassie I in 1930 and issued the first written constitution in 1931.

Italy invaded in October 1935, using poison gas. The emperor went into exile in 1936; the Arbegnoch (patriots) kept fighting in the countryside. With British and Commonwealth forces, Ethiopia was liberated and Haile Selassie re-entered Addis Ababa on 5 May 1941.

In the post-war decades the emperor became a leading voice of African independence. Yet land inequality, famine in Wollo and demands for reform fed growing unrest, and in 1974 he was deposed.