Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1943-45
The Italian Resistance joins the Allies against Mussolini and the Nazis; Tuscany is liber-
ated. When civil warfare ends in 1945, a coalition government is formed.
1946
Umberto II is exiled after a referendum to make Italy a republic is successful; 71.6% of
Tuscans vote for a republic.
1959-63
Italy's economy revives via industrialisation, entrepreneurship and US Marshall Plan in-
vestments designed to stop it from joining the Soviet Bloc.
1966
The Arno bursts its banks, submerging Florence in metres of mud and water. Some 5000
people are left homeless and thousands of art works and manuscripts are destroyed.
1969
Strikes and university-student uprisings demand social change and promote sweeping re-
forms, not just in working conditions but also in housing, social services, pensions and
civil rights.
1970s-'80s
The Anni di Piombo (Years of Lead) terrorise the country with extremist violence and re-
prisals; police kill anarchist Franco Serantini in Pisa, and Red Brigades kill Florence's
mayor in 1986.
1993
A car bomb at the Uffizi kills six and causes US$10 million damage to artworks. The mafia
is suspected, but never indicted. The same year 200,000 people protest mafia violence.
1995
Maurizio Gucci, heir to the Florence-born Gucci fashion empire, is gunned down outside
his Milan offices. Three years later, his estranged wife Patrizia Reggiani is jailed for order-
ing his murder.
2005
