Page 71 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Italy

THE HIST OR Y OF IT AL Y  69

1978 Ex-prime minister
Aldo Moro kidnapped
and assassinated by
the Red Brigades

1994 TV magnate Silvio
Berlusconi becomes
prime minister after 1996 Fire destroys La Fenice theatre in Venice
forming political party 1997 Earthquake in Assisi seriously
“Forza Italia”. Alleged damages the Basilica di San Francesco,
financial irregularities destroying Giotto’s frescoes
force him to resign
later that year 2000 Rome celebrates the
Holy Year known as the Jubilee
1992 Judge Giovanni 2002 Euro is adopted
Falcone killed by 2006 Italy wins World Cup in Germany
Mafia in Sicily
2008 Silvio Berlusconi wins third term as
prime minister but resigns in 2011 as the
1992 Scandals expose country is gripped by financial crisis
widespread corruption in
the postwar political system 2011 Mario Monti sworn
1966 River Arno in as prime minister
bursts its banks, 1983 Bettino
flooding Florence Craxi, Italy’s first 2013 Pope Benedict XVI resigns
and damaging Socialist prime and Pope Francis is elected
many priceless minister, forms 2014 Democrat Matteo Renzi is
works of art government elected prime minister
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
1990 World 2016 Rome elects its first
Cup staged female mayor, Virginia Raggi
1978 in Italy
Election of 2015 Milan hosts the
Pope John Universal Exposition
Paul II
2014 Landslide victory of
1982 premier Renzi’s Democratic
Italian football party at the European election
team wins World
Cup in 2013 Election results in
Spain coalition government
2011 Italy celebrates
1969 Bomb outrage
in Milan at Piazza 150 years of unification
Fontana; 13 killed 2006 Romano Prodi sworn
and many injured in as prime minister
2005 Election of Pope Benedict XVI
1999 Roberto Benigni wins three Oscars
for his film La Vita è Bella, including best
actor and best foreign language film
1997 Dario Fo wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
Italian Cinema Since World War II
The social problems of late 1940s Italy such as Death in Venice (1971), show
inspired a wave of cinema known as Neo- formal beauty and decadence, while
Realism. Leading exponents included Roberto Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960)
Rossellini, who made Roma Città Aperta (1945), and Roma (1972) depict life as a grotesque
Vittorio de Sica, the director of Bicycle Thieves carnival. Italy has also produced some
(1948), Pier Paolo Pasolini and Luchino commercially successful films, such as
Visconti. Since that time, the major Sergio Leone’s late 1960s westerns and
Italian directors have cultivated their Vittorio de Sica the Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso and
own personal styles. Visconti’s later films, (1901–74) La Vita è Bella.

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