Background: Italy became a nation-state in 1861 when the city-states of the peninsula, along with Sardinia and Sicily, were united under King Victor EMMANUEL II. An era of parliamentary government came to a close in the early 1920s when Benito MUSSOLINI established a Fascist dictatorship. His disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany led to Italy's defeat in World War II. A democratic republic replaced the monarchy in 1946 and economic revival followed. Italy was a charter member of NATO and the European Economic Community (EEC). It has been at the forefront of European economic and political unification, joining the Economic and Monetary Union in 1999. Persistent problems include illegal immigration, organized crime, corruption, high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and the low incomes and technical standards of southern Italy compared with the prosperous north.
July 14th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily This video was actually taken by another field school student, Kirsten, who was sitting in the front seat of the Fiat Punto that we were driving downhill in. Bob, the driver in this video, drives INS ... [full story]
July 10th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily » Catania Catania Continued...And the last of Rome!
The next day, Saturday, Jenn and I went to Museo dello Sbarco. This is a museum about the U.S. invasion in Sicily during WW2. This museum was very expans ... [full story]
July 7th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily The last week at the site was an exciting and also disappointing one. I haven't talked much about the site itself, as the field school was a vast failure at best. We never ended up digging inside the ... 9 photos[full story]
June 19th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily » Catania Catania
Sooo thursday morning was crazzzzzzzzzzy!!! I woke up early to catch my flight to Catania from Rome, and I woke up to a text message saying Haley was engaged!!! Crazyness!! Then I got a ... [full story]
July 6th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily (June 21) Opting out of the last weekend trip to Lipari, I wanted to go to the beach in town! Since we didn't have access to a car to drive us down, we walked. Cait and I were the only ones who went, ... 4 photos[full story]
July 5th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily So the place that I stayed at along with 16 other people as I mentioned earlier was called the Agriturismo. For all the bad things that happened, I actually ended up with the best roommates out of eve ... 13 photos[full story]
July 5th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily » Siracusa (June 13th) We got Friday off this week, as the previous week we had worked 6 days in a row. This trip was taken by everyone (as most of the weekend excursions are optional, since it's extra money to ... 12 photos[full story]
July 5th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily » Piazza Armerina (June 15th) After getting our free breakfast at the hotel bar (cappuccino and a chocolate creme filled croissant...yeah I was being the fat kid that morning), we headed back towards the east coast of ... 14 photos[full story]
July 5th 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily » Agrigento (June 14th) After Caltagirone, all of us loaded up into our Fiat Puntos and made the rest of the drive across the island to Agrigento to visit the Valley of the Temples. We got there fairly late in th ... [full story]
July 3rd 2008Europe » Italy » Sicily (June 14) This trip was an overnighter, so we covered a lot of areas. Ultimate destination was Agrigento (where the Valley of the Temples is). Our first stop was an archaeological site, Morgantina. Th ... 8 photos[full story]
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