Ethiopia is thought to have been home to some of the earliest hominids, including Lucy (or Dinkinesh, as she is known in Amharic) who was discovered in the northern Rift Valley of the Afar region. Ethiopia may also be where humans expanded out of Africa to populate Eurasia 1.8 million years ago. http://www.everyculture.com/Cr-Ga/Ethiopia.html

Abyssinian culture dates back over 3,000 years. In the Hebrew Bible, a tradition of the history of nations in Genesis:10 makes reference to Sheba, the son of Raamah, son of Cush, the son of Ham, son of Noah. The Emperors of Ethiopia claimed descent from the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon of Israel. The Kebra Negast ('the Glory of Kings'), an ancient compilation of Ethiopian legends (dated to seven hundred years ago) relates the history of “Makeda” and her descendants.

According to the narrative, Solomon invited Mekada to a banquet, serving spicy food to induce her thirst; he then invited her to stay in his palace overnight. The Queen asked him to swear that he would not take her by force. He accepted upon the condition that she, in turn, would not take anything from his house by force. The Queen assured that she would not, slightly offended by this intimation. But as she woke up in the middle of the night, she was very thirsty. Just as she reached for a jar of water placed close to her bed, Solomon appeared, warning her that she was breaking her oath. Thus, while quenching her thirst, she set the king free from his promise and they spent the night together.

The tradition that the Biblical Queen of Sheba was a ruler of Ethiopia who visited King Solomon in Jerusalem, in ancient Israel, is supported by the first century AD Roman (of Jewish origin) historian Flavius Josephus, who identified Solomon’s visitor as a "Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia". The earliest inscriptions of the rulers of Dimt in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea mention queens of very high status, possibly equal to their kings.

Axum, the ancient Kingdom of Northern Ethiopia, was once named by the Persian philosopher-prophet Mani as one of the four great empires of the earth. Legend has it that the Kings of Axum and later the Emperors of Ethiopia were descended from King Solomon of Israel, said to have fathered the first emperor, Menelik I, by the queen of Sheba. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Sheba)

Morre Info on Sheba:
http://www.windweaver.com/sheba/Shebahome.htm

Upon his coming of age Menelik is said to have visited his father in Jerusalem and been initiated into the Jewish faith. He is then said to have stolen the Ark of the Covenant from the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem and returned with it to Axum, where is now resides in the Church of St Mary of Zion.

The Axumite Empire had its beginnings around 100 AD. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was founded by two Egyptian monks Frumentius and Aedissius in the early fourth century, during the reign of King Ezana, who converted to Christianity along with many of his people. Frumentius was later consecrated bishop in Alexandria, returning to Ethiopia to be its first bishop. Ethiopia quickly became the first Christian nation of Africa (after Egypt). The power of the Axum Empire declined in the late 10th century, ushering in the Zagwe dynasty that revolved around present-day Lalibella. In the 16th century, Ethiopia was explored by Vasco da Gama who found a land ravished by wars and feuds. In the 19th century, the Italians and British began vying for Ethiopia. Under Emperor Menelik II, Ethiopia defeated the Italians in 1896 in the Battle of Adowa, allowing it to remain independent. (www.epictrip.com/Ethiopia-travel-l235.html)

Ethiopia's great depth of history, spiritual diversity and its multitude of colour are comparable only with India. The Amharic language, descended from Ge’ez, the sacred language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, is the only African language with its own alphabet today. The Orthodox Church dates back to the 4th century AD. Before that Judaic culture in Ethiopia (Falasha) goes back around 3000 years.

Prester John
Ethiopia always held a fascination for the European mind, being a distant land remote from the known world but Christian nonetheless. This fascination was expressed in the legend of Prester John; a legendary Christian King of the East, rumoured to rule a Christian Kingdom surrounded by Muslim lands. Prester John had been considered the ruler of India since the legend's beginnings, but "India" was a vague concept. Writers often spoke of the "Three Indias," lacking any real knowledge of the Indian Ocean, and they sometimes considered Ethiopia one of the three. Westerners knew Ethiopia was a powerful Christian nation, but contact had been sporadic since the rise of Islam.

Marco Polo had discussed Ethiopia as a magnificent Christian land and Orthodox Christians had a legend that the nation would one day rise up and invade Arabia. In 1306 thirty Ethiopian ambassadors from Emperor Wedem Arad came to Europe, and Prester John was mentioned as the patriarch of their church in a record of their visit. The first clear description of an African Prester John is in the Mirabilia Descripta of the Dominican missionary Jordanus, around 1329. In discussing the "Third India," Jordanus records a number of fanciful stories about the land and its king, whom he says Europeans call Prester John. After this point, an African location became increasingly popular; by the time the emperor Lebna Dengel and the Portuguese had established diplomatic contact with each other in 1520, Prester John was the name by which Europeans knew the Emperor of Ethiopia.  (Wikipedia)

Islam In Ethiopia
However Ethiopia is also of special importance for Islam since, in the 7th century, the Christian King of Axum gave refuge to companions of the Prophet Mohammed including Uthman (later Khalif of the Muslim Ummah), when they were facing persecution in Mecca from the Quraish (the pagan establishment). Moreover, Bilal, the first muezzin (the person calling the faithful to prayer), one of the foremost companions of Mohammed, was from Ethiopia.

Today all three “Abrahamic” religions are present in Ethiopia, and there has almost always been an overwhelming atmosphere of tolerant co-existence between them, rather than the factionalism and rivalry seen in some areas of mixed religion, such as the Middle East or the Balkans.

Ethiopia as African Zion
Ethiopia is also a sacred land for a newer religion. The Italian fascists, under Mussolini, had tried to conquer Ethiopia (for the second time) in the last century. They attacked in 1935, using mustard gas and other such filthy tactics, occupying the country and joining it with Eritrea and Italian Somali-land to form “Italian East Africa”. They were thrown out in 1941 after a 7 year occupation, having been there long enough to leave a mark in the form of the macchiato and the caffé urbano. Haili Selassi had managed to kick them out, (admittedly with a lot of help from the Allies) so fulfilling the prophesy of Marcus Garvey, and raising himself from the lowly status of “The Lion of Judah” (the title of the emperors of the Solomonic dynasty) to that of God Himself in the eyes of the dispossessed African peoples of the Caribbean. And so the Rastafarian movement was born, with Ethiopia named as Zion in Africa, the land of the Ras Teffari (Haili Selassi), who would deliver the African nation into Exodus from their captivity in Babylon beneath the chains of European colonialism.

In response to their proclamation Selassi, offered land to all the African Diaspora who wished to return to Ethiopia. Many Rastas went to Ethiopia and are now living in Shashamani, a few hundred kilometres south of Addis Ababa. They have had very little success in winning converts to their faith among the locals. Some reggae culture has taken off amongst the urban youth in Addis and other cities, but they don’t take the religion's doctrines as a serious prospect. Most Ethiopians remain devoutly Orthodox Christian today, although some protestant sects are actively proselytising. Other areas are predominantly Muslim, such as Harar, Somali, Borena, Siltie, Alaba and Benishangul.

For more information on Ethiopian culture and history: 
http://www.oneworldmagazine.org/focus/etiopia/toc.html 

Some fantastic images of Ethiopia!
http://www.peace-on-earth.org/Ethiopia/index.html