Italian History Timeline (Part 4)

Events 601 - 800 of 834

• 1955-12-14 16 countries join the United Nations, including Austria, Finland, Italy, and Spain
• 1956-02-09 -5°F (-20.6°C) in Sicily
• 1956-09-13 Stravinsky's "Canticum Sacrum," premieres in Venice

• 1957-05-19 Adone Zoli forms Italian government
• 1958-09-23 Stravinsky's "Thieni" premieres in Venice
• 1959-01-26 Italy government of Fanfani resigns
• 1959-02-15 Antonio Segni forms Italian government

• 1960-02-24 Italian government of Antonio Segni falls
• 1960-03-25 Italian government Tambroni forms
• 1960-06-26 Italian Somaliland declares independence from Italian administration
• 1960-07-01 The independent Somali Democratic Republic, commonly known as Somalia, is formed out of former British and Italian territories
• 1960-07-19 Italian government of Tambroni resigns
• 1960-07-26 Italian government of Fanfani forms
• 1961-05-27 Fiorentina of Italy win 1st European Cup Winner's Cup against Glasgow Rangers 4-2 in Florence (2nd leg)
• 1961-11-11 Congolese soldiers murder 13 Italian UN pilots
• 1961-12-23 Train accident in Italy, 70 die
• 1962-04-05 St Bernard Tunnel finished-Swiss/Italians workers shake hands
• 1962-05-06 Antonio Segni elected President of Italy
• 1962-05-11 Antonio Segni becomes President of Italy
• 1962-08-14 French & Italian workers break through at Mont Blanc Vehicular Tunnel
• 1962-10-27 The plane of Enrico Mattei, Italian oil industry's most powerful figure, crashes in mysterious circumstances
• 1963-02-16 1st round-trip swim of Strait of Messina, Italy (Mary Revell of US)
• 1963-10-09 Vajont Dam disaster, landslide creates 50 million cubic metre wave killing around 2,000 in the Piave Valley in Northern Italy

• 1964-02-27 The government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
• 1964-05-12 Italian diplomat and politician Manlio Brosio chosen as secretary-general of NATO
• 1964-08-26 Italian Communist Party selects Luigi Longo as chairman
• 1964-10-04 Italian Autostrada del Sol opens at Milan-Naples
• 1964-12-06 President Antonio Segni of Italy resigns
• 1965-04-02 Hochhuths play "Stellvertreter" banned in Italy
• 1965-07-16 Mont Blanc Road tunnel between France & Italy opens

• 1966-11-04 Flooding of Arno River (Florence, Italy) destroys countless art works, kills 113
• 1967-01-14 Earthquake in Sicily kills 231

• 1968-09-28 Alberto Giolani of Italy roller skates record 23.133 miles in 1 hr
• 1970-06-19 Russian cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanov return after 18 days in Soyuz 9, the longest crewed flight by a solo spacecraft

• 1970-07-18 Arthur Brown arrested for stripping on stage in Palemo Sicily
• 1970-08-06 Italian government of Mariano Rumor resigns
• 1972-02-18 Giulio Andreotti sworn in as premier of Italy for the 1st time
• 1972-05-05 Alitalia DC-8 crashes west of Palermo Sicily; killing 115
• 1972-11-30 Illegal fireworks factory explodes killing 15 in Rome, Italy
• 1973-07-10 John Paul Getty III, grandson of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped in Rome by Italian gangsters wanting a ransom
• 1973-07-17 Military coup in Afghanistan, led by former prime minister, and cousin to the king, Mohammad Daoud Khan; King Mohammad Zahir Shah remains in Italy were he was receiving medical treatment at the time
• 1973-11-22 Italian Fascist organization Ordine Nuovo disbands
• 1974-02-18 NASA launches Italian satellite San Marcos C-2 (235/843 km)
• 1974-03-06 An unnamed Italian industrialist loses a record $1,920,000 at roulette over 5 hours in Monte Carlo Casino
• 1974-03-11 Mount Etna in Sicily erupted
• 1974-04-18 Red Brigade kidnaps Italian attorney general Mario Sossi
• 1974-05-23 Italian Red Brigade officer Mario Sossi freed
• 1974-05-28 Italian fascists bomb demonstrators in Brescia, 6 killed
• 1974-06-10 Rumor's government in Italy resigns
• 1975-02-18 Italy broadens abortion law
• 1975-06-16 Italy's Communist party PCI, wins

• 1976-05-06 An earthquake strikes Friuli in Northern Italy, causes 989 deaths and the destruction of entire villages
• 1976-06-21 Italian General Election; Enrico Berlinguer's Communist party win their greatest-ever share of the vote (34.4%)
• 1976-07-30 Giulio Andreotti sworn in as premier of Italy for the 2nd time
• 1978-03-16 Red Brigade kidnaps former premier Aldo Moro in Italy, 5 killed
• 1978-04-15 43 die as 2 express trains collide head-on south of Bologna, Italy
• 1978-05-09 Corpse of kidnapped Italian ex-premier Aldo Moro found
• 1978-05-18 Italy legalizes abortion
• 1978-06-15 Italy's pres Leone resigns due to Lockheed affair
• 1978-07-08 Sandro Pertini elected the 7th President of the Italian Republic
• 1978-08-26 Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice becomes Pope John Paul I
• 1979-01-18 Peter Jenkins finishes "A Walk Across America" at Florence, Oregon
• 1979-08-04 Italian government of Cossiga begins
• 1980-06-27 Italian plane crashes into Tyrrheense Sea, kills 81
• 1980-08-02 Fascist bomb attack on Bologna Italy train station, 86 killed
• 1980-08-20 Reinhold Messner of Italy is 1st to complete solo ascent of Mt Everest
• 1980-11-23 4,800 die in series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy
• 1981-05-26 The Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his coalition cabinet resign following a scandal over membership of the pseudo-masonic lodge P2 (Propaganda Due)

• 1981-08-27 Divers begin to recover a safe found aboard sunken Italian liner Andrea Doria
• 1982-01-28 Italian police rescue US Brigadier General James Dozier, held hostage for six weeks by the Red Brigade of Padua, Italy
• 1982-07-31 Finland, Italy, Germany, Austria and France form American European Football Federation (AEFF)
• 1982-09-24 US, Italian & French peacekeeping troops begin arriving in Lebanon
• 1983-08-04 Bettino Craxi is sworn in as Prime Minister of Italy, the 1st Socialist to hold the office
• 1984-02-18 Revised concordat between Italy & Vatican signed
• 1985-07-19 The Val di Stava Dam collapse killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.

• 1985-10-07 PLO terrorists seize Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro
• 1985-10-10 US fighter jets force Egyptian plane carrying hijackers of Italian ship Achille Lauro to land in Italy, gunmen are placed in custody
• 1986-09-30 Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed details of Israel covert nuclear program to British media, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy
• 1987-06-15 Bettino Craxi's Socialist Party wins election in Italy
• 1987-07-02 Nilde Iotti is named as the first female President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
• 1987-09-15 Italy sends a naval contingent to the Persian Gulf
• 1988-04-13 Italian government of Ciriaco De Mita forms
• 1988-06-12 Andy Hampton is 1st American to win Round of Italy
• 1988-08-28 70 killed in crash of three Italian air force fighters at air show at Ramstein, Germany
• 1989-04-27 Mandatory seatbelt law goes into effect in Italy
• 1990-12-13 Heavy earthquake strikes Sicily, 18 die
• 1991-03-04 Iraq releases 6 US, 3 British & 1 Italian POW
• 1991-04-10 Boat rams a tanker in Livorno Italy fog, killing about 138
• 1991-09-19 Ötzi the Iceman, 3,300 BCE old mummy discovered by German tourists in Italian alps - oldest surviving corpse from Europe
• 1992-04-28 Italian President Francesco Cossiga formally resigns
• 1992-05-15 Colombo '92 opens in Genoa Italy
• 1992-05-23 Sicilian Mafia bombs motorcade killing anti-mob prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three police escorts on Highway A29, near Capaci, Sicily
• 1992-05-25 Oscar Luigi Scalfaro elected President of Italy
• 1992-06-28 Italian government of Amato forms
• 1992-08-15 Colombo '92 closes in Genoa, Italy

• 1993-01-15 Top Italian mafia leader Salvatore "Toto" Riina arrested in Palermo, Sicily
• 1993-04-28 Carlo Ciampi forms Italian government with ex-communists
• 1993-05-18 Italian police arrest Mafia boss Benedetto "Nitto" Santapaola
• 1993-05-27 Mafia bombs Uffizi Museum in Florence, killing 6
• 1994-01-13 Italian government of Carlo Ciampi resigns

• 1994-05-10 Silvio Berlusconi forms Italian government with 5 neo-fascists
• 1994-07-29 Former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi gets 8½ year jail sentence on corruption charges; he flees to Tunisia, never to return to Italy
• 1994-12-22 Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi resigns
• 1995-03-01 Ukraine premier Vitaly Massol resigns
• 1995-06-06 Moses Kiptanui of Kenya runs world 5,000m record 12:55.30 in Rome, Italy
• 1997-01-10 Italy's new 1,000 lire coin shows divided Germany on map
• 1997-09-26 An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria and the Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse
• 1997-10-09 Nobel prize for literature awarded to Italian playwright Dario Fo
• 1998-02-12 250-car Italy pile-up due to fog, 4 die & 50 hurt
• 1999-05-13 Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is elected 10th President of Italy

• 2000-06-13 Italy pardons Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981
• 2001-05-13 Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing "House of Freedoms" coalition wins the Italian general election
• 2001-06-30 ENI of Italy signs a $550 million contract to develop Iran's Darquain field, expected to produce 160,000 barrels of petroleum per day
• 2001-07-20 Italy: The 27th Annual G8 summit opens in Genoa. An Italian protester in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani, is shot by police.
• 2001-10-08 A twin engine Cessna and Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) jetliner collide in heavy fog during takeoff from Milan, Italy killing 118.
• 2003-03-13 The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human have been found in Italy
• 2003-07-02 Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, insults German MP Martin Schulz by calling him a "kapo" during a session of the European Parliament.
• 2003-11-12 Iraq war: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.
• 2005-03-04 The car of released Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena is fired on by US soldiers in Iraq, causing the death of an Italian Secret Service Agent and injuring two passengers.
• 2005-04-25 Final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937
• 2006-05-10 Giogio Napolitano is elected President of Italy, first former communist to become President
• 2006-11-27 Francesco Cossiga, Italian politician and former President of the Italian Republic, resigns from his position as lifetime senator
• 2007-02-21 Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigns from office. His resignation is rejected by the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano.
• 2008-11-14 Eurozone officially slips into recession for the first time since its creation in 1999, pushed down by recessions in Germany and Italy
• 2008-11-14 Italy plunges into recession, its first since the start of 2005, after GDP contracts a steeper-than-expected 0.5% in the third quarter
• 2009-04-06 A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near L'Aquila, Italy, killing at least 253.
• 2010-02-23 Unknown criminals pour more than 2.5 million litres of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in Northern Italy, causing an environmental disaster.
• 2010-02-24 Europe risks a double-dip recession after bad results emerge from France, Germany and Italy, it is reported today; the Eurozone only grew by 0.1% in the last quarter of 2009
• 2010-04-12 A train derailed near Merano, Italy, after running into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.

• 2011-11-12 Silvio Berlusconi resigns as Prime Minister of Italy due, in large part, to the European sovereign debt crisis.
• 2012-01-13 Italian cruiseliner Costa Concordia runs aground at Isola de Giglio, Italy, causing 32 deaths
• 2012-05-20 6.0 magnitude earthquake kills 6 and injures dozens in northern Italy
• 2012-05-29 5.9 magnitude earthquake kills 24 people near Bologna, Italy
• 2012-07-25 Italy's credit rating is downgraded to CCC+ by Egan-Jones
• 2012-10-22 6 Italian scientists are convicted of manslaughter for their failure to predict the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake
• 2012-12-02 Pier Luigi Bersani is elected Italian Prime Minister
• 2012-12-18 4 people are killed and 11 are injured after an apartment block collapses in Palermo, Italy
• 2013-01-04 6 Russian tourists are killed, and 2 are seriously injured when their snowmobile veers off a ski slope on Mount Cermis, Italy
• 2013-02-25 Italy Common Good, a centre left alliance, wins the Italian general election
• 2013-04-20 Giorgio Napolitano is re-elected President of Italy
• 2013-05-07 Jolly Nero, an Italian cargo ship, crashes into the port of Genoa, killing seven people
• 2013-05-08 Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi receives a four year prison sentence for fraud
• 2013-07-28 39 people are killed after a bus veers off a bridge in Avellino Province, Italy
• 2013-10-03 325 people are killed after a migrant ship catches fire and shipwrecks of the coast of Lampedusa, Italy
• 2013-10-11 27 people are killed after a migrant boat sinks in the Channel of Sicily
• 2014-02-14 Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta resigns after less than a year in office
• 2014-02-22 Matteo Renzi becomes Prime Minister of Italy
• 2014-11-11 An Italian appeals court overturns a manslaughter conviction against 6 scientists for failing to give adequate warning of a deadly earthquake
• 2015-01-21 Italian fashion label Gucci names Alessandro Michele as its new creative director
• 2015-01-31 Sergio Mattarella is elected President of Italy
• 2015-04-19 Boat carrying approx. 850 migrants is shipwrecked in the Mediterranean between Italian and Libya, with only 27 migrants rescued.
• 2015-11-09 "Reclining Nude" by Italian artist Modigliani fetches 2nd highest auction price at $170.4m
• 2016-07-08 Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri is the first woman to be appointed artistic director at French fashion house Christian Dior
• 2016-08-24 6.2-magnitude earthquake strikes central Italy, north east of Rome, killing 268, injuring 400
• 2016-08-29 Italian coastguard says 6,500 migrants rescued at sea in 40 separate incidents in 1 day off coast of Sabratha, Libya
• 2016-10-30 6.6-magnitude earthquake hits central Italy - strongest in Italy for 36 years
• 2016-12-07 Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigns 3 days after losing a referendum to reform the constitution
• 2016-12-12 Paolo Gentiloni is sworn in as Prime Minister of Italy, succeeding Matteo Renzi
• 2018-03-04 Italian general election results in no clear winner; populist Five Star Movement led by Luigi Di Maio receives most votes with 32%

• 2018-06-01 Law professor Giuseppe Conte is sworn in as Italian Prime Minister as head of a populist coalition

• 2018-08-14 Italy's Morandi Bridge collapses in Genoa, taking 30 vehicles with it and killing 43
• 2018-08-15 Italian PM Giuseppe Conte declares a 12-month state of emergency in Liguria after the collapse of the Morandi Bridge
• 2018-09-04 Italian city Florence bans people eating in the street in its historic center
• 2018-09-08 Archaeologists uncover more than 300 gold coins from late imperial period from theatre in Como, Italy
• 2018-09-25 US fashion company Michael Kors buys Italian brand Versace for $2.1 billion
• 2018-10-23 European Commission rejects Italy's budget, first country to be rejected
• 2018-10-29 Storms in Italy kill at least 11 with 75% of Venice flooded and two tornadoes striking Terracina
• 2018-11-04 Death toll from week-long storm in Italy rises to 29 with death of nine people in floods in Casteldaccia, Sicily
• 2018-12-04 Attempts to establish mob council in Sicily thwarted when 46 members of the mafia arrested including Settimio Mineo
• 2018-12-07 Former Italy national football coach Cesare Prandelli is appointed manager of Serie A club Genoa CFC replacing Ivan Juric; first time in history all 20 Serie A managers are all Italian
• 2019-02-07 France recalls its Italian ambassador from Rome after Italian deputy PM Luigi Di Maio met with yellow vest protesters
• 2019-02-26 City of Venice in Italy introduces a day visitors tax
• 2019-03-18 Italian charity ship Mare Jonio rescues 50 migrants off the coast of Libya

• 2019-07-03 Italian David-Maria Sassoli chosen as new European Parliament President
• 2019-08-20 Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resigns after Matteo Salvini calls for a no-confidence vote

• 2019-11-13 Venice hit by worse floods for 50 years, due to a very high tide with waves in St Mark's square, killing one resident
• 2020-02-23 First major COVID-19 outbreak in Europe in Italy with 152 cases and three deaths, prompting emergency measures, locking down 10 towns in Lombardy
• 2020-03-04 Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announces all sports in Italy will be played behind closed doors for at least a month in an effort to contain COVID-19
• 2020-03-08 Italy announces it is locking down northern region of Lombardy, including Milan, with 16 million people, as COVID-19 cases reach 5,800 with 233 deaths
• 2020-03-09 Italy announces it is locking down the whole country due to a spike in COVID-19 cases with 10,040 cases and 630 deaths
• 2020-03-15 European countries impose restrictions on gatherings and borders as COVID-19 deaths rates rise dramatically - Italy 1,809, Spain 288, France 120

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• Agostino Depretis
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• Aldo Moro
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