One African King Predicted World War Two. The World Chose Not To Listen

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]One man stood before the entire world in 1936 and told them exactly what was coming. They laughed at him.

[00:00:07]Three years later, everything he predicted came true.

[00:00:10]Ethiopia in 1935 was the last independent African nation on a colonized continent.

[00:00:17]It had already done the impossible once.

[00:00:19]In 1896 at the Battle of Adwa, Ethiopian forces defeated Italy's invading army so completely it became the only African victory over a European colonial power in history.

[00:00:32]Mussolini never forgot that humiliation.

[00:00:35]On October 3rd, 1935, without a declaration of war, Italy invaded Ethiopia from three directions simultaneously.

[00:00:44]But this wasn't the Italy of 1896.

[00:00:47]This was a fascist military machine with aircraft, tanks, artillery, and chemical weapons.

[00:00:53]Special sprayers were installed aboard aircraft to spread a fine deadly rain over vast stretches of territory.

[00:01:00]Squadrons of 9, 15, even 18 aircraft flying in single file covered the sky with a thick persistent cloud.

[00:01:08]Soldiers, women, children, livestock, waterways, lakes, and pastures were constantly under this deadly rain.

[00:01:16]Ethiopia had spears and rifles against mustard gas dropped from the sky.

[00:01:21]Haile Selassie fled to Geneva and did something no head of state had ever done before.

[00:01:26]He stood up in the League of Nations Assembly and addressed the world himself.

[00:01:30]I, Haile Selassie, the first emperor of Ethiopia, am here today to claim that justice which is due to my people.

[00:01:38]There is no precedent for a head of state himself speaking in this assembly.

[00:01:42]But there is also no precedent for a people being victim of such injustice.

[00:01:47]He described the poison gas, the bombing of Red Cross hospitals, the slaughter of civilians.

[00:01:53]Then he looked directly at the assembled nations of the world and said, "It is us today, it will be you tomorrow."

[00:02:00]The League did nothing.

[00:02:02]Sanctions were passed, but oil and coal, the resources Italy actually needed, were excluded.

[00:02:09]Some officials feared that strong action might push Mussolini into alliance with Adolf Hitler.

[00:02:15]Three years later, Hitler invaded Poland.

[00:02:18]The League collapsed entirely.

[00:02:20]Every nation that had sat in that room and done nothing faced exactly what Selassie had warned them about.

[00:02:27]He had told them precisely what was coming in that room on that day.

[00:02:32]They chose not to listen. Ethiopia was occupied for five years, but Selassie never surrendered.

[00:02:40]He returned in 1941 with British support, liberated his country, and outlasted Mussolini, who was executed by his own people in 1945.

[00:02:50]The man they ignored in Geneva was right about everything.

[00:02:53]The men who ignored him lost everything.