Among Ethiopia's Coptic Christian traditions is the September Meskel Festival marking the finding of the true cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified. The festival is ancient; dating back 1,600 years and it is celebrated with yellow Meskel daisies placed on top of huge bonfires that are light in the evening in front of the throngs of celebrators. Ornately robed priests carrying silver Coptic crosses dance with their followers around the fires singing and chanting and carrying flaming torches. The flowering of the cross-shaped Meskel daisies also marks the end of the 3-month long rainy season and the return of the sun.

Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in the world and Africa's second-most populous nation. Ethiopia has yielded some of humanity's oldest traces, making the area a primary factor in the origin and developmental history of humanity, with recent studies claiming the vicinity of present-day Addis Ababa as the point from which human beings migrated around the world. Ethiopian dynastic history traditionally began with the reign of Emperor Menelik I in 1000 BC. The roots of the Ethiopian state are similarly deep, dating with unbroken continuity to at least the Aksumite Empire (which officially used the name "Ethiopia" in the 4th century) and its predecessor state, D`mt (with early 1st millennium BC roots). After a period of decentralized power in the 18th and early 19th centuries known as the Zemene Mesafint ("Era of the Judges/Princes"), the country was reunited in 1855 by Kassa Hailu, who became Emperor Tewodros II, beginning Ethiopia's modern history, Ethiopia's borders underwent significant territorial expansion to its modern borders for the rest of the century due to several migrations and commercial integration as well as conquests, especially by Emperor Menelik II and Ras Gobena, culminating in its victory over the Italians at the Battle of Adwa in 1896 with the military leadership of Ras Makonnen, and ensuring its sovereignty and freedom from colonization. It was brutally occupied by Benito Mussolini's Italy from 1936 to 1941, was defeat by Ethiopian patriot forces.