Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1814-15
After Napoleon's fall, the Congress of Vienna is held to re-establish the balance of power in
Europe. The result for Italy is largely a return of the old occupying powers.
1848
European revolts spark rebellion in Italy, especially in Austrian- occupied Milan and
Venice. Piedmont's King Carlo Alberto joins the fray against Austria, but within a year
Austria recovers Lombardy and Veneto.
1860
In the name of Italian unity, Giuseppe Garibaldi lands with 1000 men, the Red Shirts, in
Sicily. He takes the island and lands in southern Italy.
1861
By the end of the 1859-61 Franco-Austrian War, Vittorio Emanuele II controls Lombardy,
Sardinia, Sicily, southern and parts of central Italy and is proclaimed king of a newly
united Italy.
1889
Raffaele Esposito invents
pizza margherita
in honour of Queen Margherita, who takes her first
bite of the Neapolitan staple on a royal visit to the city.
1908
On the morning of 28 December, Messina and Reggio di Calabria are struck by a
7.5-magnitude earthquake and a 13-metre-high tsunami. More than 80,000 lives are lost.
1915
Italy enters WWI on the side of the Allies to win Italian territories still in Austrian hands
after Austria's offer to cede some of the territories is deemed insufficient.
1919
Former socialist journalist Benito Mussolini forms a right-wing militant group, the Fasci
Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Fasces), precursor to his Fascist Party.
1922
Mussolini and his Fascists stage a march on Rome in October. Doubting the army's loyalty,
a fearful King Vittorio Emanuele III entrusts Mussolini with the formation of a government.
