Modern Era · Africa · Politics
1974
Haile Selassie deposed
September 12, 1974
After eight hundred years of Ethiopian monarchy, a Marxist military committee called the Derg deposed the eighty-two-year-old emperor Haile Selassie. He was kept under house arrest in his palace until, it was reported, he died of prostate failure a year later. Many believed he was smothered on Derg orders. The Lion of Judah was no more.