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• on Floodplain, San Francisco-based string quartet the Kronos Quartet plays instruments built by Walter Kitundu, including the beguèna maridhia, which is based on an Ethiopian 10-string lyre?
• the electricity generating capacity of Ethiopia is projected to double when the Gibe III dam and the associated hydropower plant, currently under construction on the Omo River, are completed?
• humans living next to a lake at the Bouri Formation in Ethiopia 160,000 and 154,000 years ago butchered not only adult Hippopotamuses but also those that were newborn?
• for creating a writing system for his Oromo language, Sheikh Bakri Sapalo was placed under house arrest in Dire Dawa by the Ethiopian government?
• although Were Ilu served as an organizing point for the Ethiopian army at the beginning of the First Italo-Abyssinian War, as late as 1962 this settlement was connected to nearby towns by only trails?
• the Eritrean Independent Moslem League was persuaded to support a union between Ethiopia and Eritrea, after receiving Ethiopian assurances on Arabic schooling and respect for Islamic traditions?
• the Muslim state of Ifat was completely annexed by Ethiopia in 1415?
• the boundary between Sudan and Ethiopia was defined for the region near the Pibor River in 1899 by Major H.H. Austin and Major Charles W. Gwynn of the British Royal Engineers?
• when British diplomat Sir Alan Campbell became ambassador to Ethiopia, he noticed people kneeling down in reverence as his car drove to the palace of Emperor Haile Selassie?
• the Nine Saints were a group of Christians from the Byzantine Empire who took part in converting areas of what is now Eritrea and Ethiopia in the late fifth century AD?
• the Middle Awash is a site along the Awash River of Ethiopia in which some of the most famous extinct hominids have been discovered?
• the 1973 parliamentary election was the last to be held under imperial rule in Ethiopia?
• a play by Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam using animal characters to criticize the Ethiopian court prompted Empress Zewditu to ban all theatre in the country?
• a separatist group refuses to allow the exploitation of crude oil and natural gas reserves in the Ogaden Basin, Ethiopia?
• Abba Garima Monastery, located near Adwa, Ethiopia, contains the crown of the Emperor Zara Yaqob of the Solomonic dynasty?
• Brancaleon, a 15th century Venetian painter who gained fortune, fame and notoriety in his adopted home of Ethiopia, is an example of early contacts between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa?
• Rastafarian Papa Noel Dyer, known as "the man who walked to Ethiopia" from England, actually hitchhiked?
• Ras Alula Engida was called "the Garibaldi of Abyssinia"?
• Ethiopian-born Meryem Erdoğan, impressed by her countrywoman Elvan Abeylegesse's success, illegally immigrated to Turkey at age 16 in order to become a distance runner?
• Karakore was the epicenter of the most destructive earthquake of 20th-century Ethiopia, which destroyed one town and left 5,000 people homeless?
• Kelbessa Negewo was charged with murder in his home country of Ethiopia after one of the women who claims he tortured her discovered him working as a bellhop in an Atlanta, Georgia hotel elevator?
• A Walk to Beautiful, a film about five Ethiopian women with childbirth injuries, was picked by the International Documentary Association as the best feature documentary of 2007?
• Zara Yaqob was the first Emperor of Ethiopia (1434–1468) to send a diplomatic mission to Europe?
• reed boats (pictured), made with reeds such as the papyrus, have been used for at least 7000 years and are still built in Peru and Ethiopia?
• Kjell Magne Yri, a linguist at the University of Oslo, began his career as a Bible translator and priest in Ethiopia?
• Ethiopian Abebe Aregai saved his resistance from defeat by repeatedly misleading the Italian occupiers into thinking he was about to join their side?

More interesting facts on Ethiopia

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