Adwa in the context of "Battle of Adwa"

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion (Amharic: ጣልያን ወረራ, romanized: Ṭalyan warära; Oromo: Weerara Xaaliyaanii), and in Italy as the Ethiopian War (Italian: Guerra d'Etiopia). It is seen as an example of the expansionist policy that characterized the Axis powers and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations before the outbreak of World War II.

On 3 October 1935, two hundred thousand soldiers of the Italian Army commanded by Marshal Emilio De Bono attacked from Eritrea (then an Italian colonial possession) without prior declaration of war. At the same time a minor force under General Rodolfo Graziani attacked from Italian Somalia. On 6 October, Adwa was conquered, a symbolic place for the Italian army because of the defeat at the Battle of Adwa by the Ethiopian army during the First Italo-Ethiopian War. On 15 October, Italian troops seized Aksum, and an obelisk adorning the city was torn from its site and sent to Rome to be placed symbolically in front of the building of the Ministry of Colonies.

Axum, also spelled Aksum (/ˈɑːksuːm/ ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire.

Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Region, near the base of the Adwa mountains. It has an elevation of 2,131 metres (6,991 feet) and is surrounded by La'ilay Maychew, a separately administered woreda of the Tigray region.

The Central Zone (Tigrinya: ዞባ ማእከላይ, romanized: Zobā Māʼékalāy) is a zone in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Towns and cities in the Central Zone include Axum and Adwa, as well as the historically significant village of Yeha and the town of Tembien Abiyi Adi. The Central Zone is bordered on the east by the Eastern Zone, on the south by South Eastern Zone, on the west by North Western Zone and on the north by Eritrea.

Georg Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper, in Amharic sources known as Sambar (2 August 1804 – October 1878), was a German botanist and naturalist who spent more than forty years in Ethiopia collecting specimens of plants, mainly in Semien, the Tekeze area and around Adwa. Schimper discovered more new African plant species than possibly any other botanist, and numerous plant species bear the epithet Schimperi/Schimperiana.