Iyasu V is proclaimed deposed as ruler of Ethiopia in a palace coup in favor of his aunt Zewditu.

Lij Iyasu also known as Iyasu V was the designated Emperor of Ethiopia from 1913 to 1916. His baptismal name was Kifle Yaqob. Ethiopian emperors traditionally chose their regnal name on the day they were crowned, and since he was never crowned, he is usually referred to as Lij Iyasu, "Lij" meaning child, especially one born of royal blood.

Zewditu was Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 until her death in 1930. She was officially renamed Zewditu at the beginning of her reign as Empress of Ethiopia. Once she succeeded the throne after Lij Yasu in 1916, she was described as the first modern-era female head of a nation in Africa. Her official coronation was on February 11, 1917, held in the Cathedral of St. George in Addis Ababa—a capital founded by her father. She was forty years old, and childless when she was crowned empress. The first female head of an internationally recognized country in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the first and only empress regnant of the Ethiopian Empire, her reign was noted for the reforms of her Regent and designated heir Ras Tafari Makonnen, about which she was at best ambivalent and often stridently opposed, due to her staunch conservatism and strong religious devotion. She is the most recent empress regnant, as well as the last female Ethiopian head of state until the 2018 election of Sahle-Work Zewde as president. It is said that she patterned her reign close to the British Queen Victoria’s legacy.