Selassie returned to lead Ethiopia in 1941 after the British Empire defeated the Italian occupiers in the East African campaign, dissolved the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which had been established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1950, and integrated Eritrea as a province of Ethiopia while fighting to prevent their seccession, his internationalist views seen and credited with Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations.
In 1961 Selassie challenged the marvelous Ethiopian 1960 Olympics marathon champion Abebe Bikila, who ran to glory barefoot through the streets of Rome past the Coliseum as night fell because the shoes Bikila had purchased did not fit and gave him blisters so he flung them off the balcony of his hotel suite the morning of his epic run having bathed his
