Haile Selassie was Emperor of Ethiopia, and was one of the great leaders of the twentieth century, as well as one of the most prominent figures in modern African history. He served as head of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, and was responsible for modernizing Ethiopia, forming the African Union, and uniting Africans both in Ethiopia and throughout the continent. He was a committed internationalist, and because of this the United Nations made Ethiopia a charter member when the U.N. was formed in 1945. Haile Selassie is revered by the Rastafarian religion as a living god.