1977 Military coup in Ethiopia

Forty years ago, on February 3, 1977, there was a military coup in Ethiopia. At a meeting of the Provisional Military Administrative Council, its chairman, Teferi Benti, was killed along with six of his supporters. The first deputy chairman of the council, Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, came to power, who personally shot General Benti and his supporters with a machine gun. He announced that Ethiopia had chosen a course of socialist orientation.