Italy invades Ethiopia on October 7, 1935. It was one of the first major wars which saw the use of combined arms tactics. The Italians used combat teams made up of tanks supported by infantry carried in trucks, while combat aircraft acted as "flying artillery". The Germans would develop these combined arms tactics further, what would be called "Blitzkrieg". The Ethiopians fought bravely and won some fights, but they could not stand up to the modern weapons and tactics of the Italians. The Italians also dropped poison gas on the Ethiopians from airplanes--without an air force of their own, the Ethiopians were defenceless. The Ethiopians were defeated, but the Emperor Haile Selassie escaped into exile on May 3, 1936. The major powers, France, Britain and the United States had refused to get involved in the war. This encouraged the fascist powers of Italy and Germany to seek more conquests. The Ethiopian invasion was a key step on the path towards the Second World War.

With the outbreak of the war in 1939, the British, South African and Belgian troops, aided by Ethiopian guerrilla forces, defeat the Italians in Ethiopia. Haile Selassie returns as emperor. Following the Italian defeat, there is little further fighting in East Africa, but just as in West Africa, after the war there was a rise in national liberation movements.

1952-54, the Mau Mau rebellion of the Kikuyu people in British Kenya breaks out. The rebellion is put down by British colonial military forces. The rebellion caused panic among the white settlers, but the rebellion was more like a civil war as the Mau Mau fighters mostly attacked other Kikuyu. Tanganyika gains its independence in 1961, followed by Uganda in 1962, while Kenya, under Jomo Kenyatta, finally won its freedom in 1963.

Okot P'Bitek born in Uganda in 1931, then a British colony, was a noted soccer player, scholar, professor and writer. Okot played for the national Ugandan soccer team, and in 1958, following a soccer tour in Britain, stayed on in England to continue his education. He wrote his first novel in 1953, called Lak Tar (which means "white teeth"). It is the story of a young man from the Acholi people of Uganda who must leave home to find work in the big city. Okot died in 1982.