The first African church (most likely) in Axum. ~900BC, not sure on the date?
Christianity around 300-350 AD, ~king to king talk of conversion, I don't know about the shipwreck- I know of it, but not the relevance.
The Derg planned, targeted the killings of the monks.
The PhD's has to do with the continual re-writting of the history of Africa and how they come up with their information.
They assumed Sabean, not original Ethiopians created the early cultures. Why? Because they do/ did not think African cultures CAN do anything by themselves- and that's the truth. They assumed wrong. The are all a bunch of lounge dwellers, cognac drinking, cigar smoking bunch that don't do good, proper research. They come to stupid conclusion based on wrong variables, not a little off, A LOT.
So, one researcher keeps on the path of the original wrong information and continue building on the wrong foundation. They teach this to students and write books and that is how information gets spread wrongfully. Example religious stats.
The more they dig up, the more they are finding that the original folks' stories are correct. So what they dismissed many centuries ago is wrong. These researchers don't go out of their way and are not qualified to give the history of Africa in my opinion. I of course cannot do any better, but I can recognize that they are wrong. There are over 80 languages and many different writtings in Ethiopia alone, how do they take account of that. They don't. They rely on English- passed down conversations/ books/ conferences/ cognac, cigar meetings, etc. Also, history is always based on the typical sociological parameters and observations- very little on science and business- which in many ways is the building and motivational reasons for most of the history of the every day person and nation as a whole. They dwell on dates, battles, stories of sociological background. They are completely blind to all the other stuff going around (outside sociology parameters) because they don't know it. That's my perspective on historical information gathering. They will keep re-writting it for a long time. Cambridge UK with their African studies department seem to be the front runners with their wrongful information gathering, imho.
I know Richard Pankhurst wrote a few historical economics books.
There are religious wars going on as we speak- SW Ethiopia between tribes of different native religions. Ethiopians themselves are not really fully knowledgeable of their own country. Most of the highly educated Ethiopians totally disregard the every day person. They live in their world and have no clue what the typical Ethiopian's history is. So their perspective on things is very different from the actual reality.
Another example is the book Emperor- Polish author suggested on this site. Interview style historical information gathering from the people that saw it every day first hand, not the made for news stories and public image make-up. What was going on is far, far from what the historians and Western media knew.
That's what I was talking about.
