Italy
Why America Targeted Italian-Americans During World War II
Louis Berizzi was in his pajamas when FBI agents burst into his Manhattan apartment and arrested him. As his daughter, Lucetta, and the rest of the family watched, wiping the sleep from their eyes, he hurried into clothing and was taken away. Soon after, FBI agents questioned ...read more
Machiavelli
According to Machiavelli, the ends always justify the means—no matter how cruel, calculating or immoral those means might be. Tony Soprano and Shakespeare’s Macbeth may be well-known Machiavellian characters, but the man whose name inspired the term, Niccolo Machiavelli, didn’t ...read more
The Disaster that Deluged Florence’s Cultural Treasures
Established around the first century B.C. as a Roman military colony, Florence became a cultural powerhouse between the 14th and 16th centuries, during the Renaissance period. The city was home to such luminaries as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Galileo, ...read more
Why does the Leaning Tower of Pisa lean?
Pick any day in the Piazza del Duomo in the Italian city of Pisa, and you will undoubtedly spot a bunch of tourists posing for the same photo: hands outstretched towards the cathedral’s conspicuously tilting bell tower, as if they are supporting it with their sheer strength. The ...read more
Italian Renaissance
Toward the end of the 14th century A.D., a handful of Italian thinkers declared that they were living in a new age. The barbarous, unenlightened “Middle Ages” were over, they said; the new age would be a “rinascità” (“rebirth”) of learning and literature, art and culture. This ...read more
Worst European earthquake ever recorded
At dawn, the most destructive earthquake in recorded European history strikes the Straits of Messina in southern Italy, leveling the cities of Messina in Sicily and Reggio di Calabria on the Italian mainland. The earthquake and tsunami it caused killed an estimated 100,000 ...read more
Italian American assassinates Italian king
In Monza, Italy, King Umberto I is shot to death by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who resided in America before returning to his homeland to murder the king. Crowned in 1878, King Umberto became increasingly authoritarian in the late 19th century. He enacted a program ...read more
Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is found dead
On May 9, 1978, the body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro is found, riddled by bullets, in the back of a car in the center of historic Rome. He was kidnapped by Red Brigade terrorists on March 16 after a bloody shoot-out near his suburban home. The Italian government ...read more
Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens
On December 15, 2001, Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after a team of experts spent 11 years and $27 million to fortify the tower without eliminating its famous lean. In the 12th century, construction began on the bell tower for the cathedral of Pisa, a busy trade center on ...read more
Benito Mussolini executed
On April 28, 1945, “Il Duce,” Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland. The 61-year-old deposed former dictator of Italy was established by his German allies as the ...read more
Landslide kills thousands in Italy
On October 9, 1963, a landslide in Italy leads to the deaths of more than 2,000 people when it causes a sudden and massive wave of water to overwhelm a dam. The Diga del Vajont dam was built in the Vaiont Gorge to supply hydroelectric power to Northern Italy. Located 10 miles ...read more
Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini was an Italian political leader who became the fascist dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1945. Originally a revolutionary socialist, he forged the paramilitary fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922. Called “Il Duce” (the Leader) by his ...read more