Ethiopia/Abyssinia ed into the lowlands At other times, the mountains/ highlands were divided among rival chieftains, leaving Ethiopia vulnerable to attack from Muslim and nonMuslim lowlanders However, the legend of a remote Christian kingdom (the kingdom of Prester John) fascinated Europeans The arrival of European visitors, especially the Portuguese, who had established trade routes to India and identified Ethiopia with the legendary kingdom, proved most timely At this time, 1540–45, the Christian highlands faced their greatest challenge—a Muslim chieftain, Mohammed al-Gran, threatened to overrun the highlands The intervention of the Portuguese military might at this critical juncture led to the defeat and the death of Mohammed al-Gran Thereafter, the Portuguese were prominent in Ethiopia, but their zeal in promoting Roman Catholic Christianity led to their expulsion in 1633 The country lapsed once more into feudalism until various chieftains fought for the throne, claiming Solomonic ancestry for two centuries, until Theodore reunited the kingdom in 1855 He was succeeded by John in 1868 and Menelik II in 1889 Under the latter, who was from the central Amharic province of Shoa, with its capital city Addis Adaba, the Ethiopian state as it exists today was formed With Western military weapons, Menelik expanded into the lowlands and stunned the world by defeating the Italians in 1896 when they tried to make Ethiopia into a protectorate 125 After the death of Menelik in 1908, the chieftain Ras Tafari gradually gained power, especially after 1916, and was crowned emperor in 1930 As the most powerful black leader of his time, he inspired the Rastafarian cult in Jamaica (from his name Ras, or Chief, Tafari) On his assumption of the title of emperor, he took the name Haile Selassie Acclaimed for his resistance against Fascist Italy in 1935, Haile Selassie enjoyed great prestige after Ethiopia was liberated in 1941 He was given the Italian possession of Eritrea in 1952 (much against its will), and Addis Ababa was made the headquarters of the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), formed in the early 1960s See also Africa, exploration of Further reading: Bahru, Zawde A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1974 Athens: Ohio University Press, 1991; Erlich, H Ethiopia and the Challenge of Independence Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1986; Gebru, T Ethiopia: Power and Protest: Peasant Revolts in the Twentieth Century Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; Marcus, Harold G Ethiopia, Great Britain, and the United States, 1941–1974; The Politics of Empire Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983; Marcus, Harold G Haile Salessie I Berkeley: University of California Press Norman C Rothman