How 100,000 Soldiers Saved Ethiopia From Colonization #battleofadwa

[00:00:00]One African nation looked a European colonial army in the eye and sent them home.

[00:00:07]Italy had already claimed Eritrea. They had their eyes on Ethiopia next.

[00:00:13]They believed, as every European colonial power believed, that an African army could not stand against a modern European force.

[00:00:22]They were wrong.

[00:00:23]Emperor Menelik II and Empress Taytu Betul mobilized over 100,000 Ethiopian soldiers. They met the Italian army at Adwa on the 1st of March, 1896.

[00:00:36]By the end of that day, the Italian force had suffered one of the worst defeats ever inflicted on a European army by an African nation.

[00:00:44]Over 7,000 Italian soldiers were killed or wounded.

[00:00:49]Ethiopia remained free.

[00:00:53]The ripple effects were immediate and global.

[00:00:57]Haiti, the first black republic, celebrated in the streets.

[00:01:01]African-American newspapers ran the story on their front pages.

[00:01:05]Across the colonized world, people who had been told that African resistance was futile saw proof that it was not.

[00:01:13]Adwa did not end colonialism, but it cracked the myth of European invincibility.

[00:01:21]And that crack never fully closed.

[00:01:25]This is your heritage, not a history of defeat and waiting.

[00:01:30]A history of resistance, strategy, and sovereignty.

[00:01:35]Africa's Lost Heritage exists to make sure you know it.

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