KEY DATES OF THE ITALIAN EMPIRE

1885: Roman Catholic priest, Guissepe Sapeto, acting as an agent for Italian commercial interests, purchases the Port of Assab from the Afar Sultanate, an Ethiopian vassal state
1887: Battle of Dogali, Italians are defeated by the Ethiopian army
1889: Menelik II succeeds Johannes IV as Emperor of Abyssinia. The Italian government signs the Treaty of Wichale with Menelik II
1890: Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi establishes the Italian colony of Eritrea on the Red Sea
1896: Tensions between Ethiopia and Italy escalated into the First Italo-Abyssinian War
1893: Menelik II formally renounces the Treaty of Wichale
1896: Battle of Adowa, Ethiopian forces outnumber Italian forces by five to six times. The Italians suffer a resounding defeat
1911-1912: Italo-Turkish War or Turco-Italian War, Italian forces seize Ottoman provinces in Libya
1922: Benito Mussolini seizes power in Italy and declares his ambition to re-establish the glory of the Roman Empire
1934: Mussolini combines Tripolitania and Cyrenaica into a single colonial province that he calls Libya.
1935: Mussolini orders the forces he has massed in Eritrea and in Italian Somaliland to subjugate Ethiopia
1936: Italy adds Ethiopia to its East African colonies
1939: Italy annexes Albania as part of the Italian Empire
1941: Italian forces in East Africa surrender to the British
1943: All Italian soldiers have been driven out of Africa by the middle of the year

In the book 'Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450' Thomas Benjamin, editor in chief, Thomsom Gale, Farmington Hills,U.S.A, 2007. p. 403. Edited to be posted  by Leopoldo Costa.