History UsefulNotes / Sicily

The island of Sicily has its own language and its own culture, like every other region in Italy but Sicilians take it UpToEleven with its regionalism. The island of Sicily after all has joined Italy just 150 ago, and for most of its history ha been regarded as barely part of the peninsula. Starting in the 8th century BCE [[note]] And even before, as there are archaelogical evidences that can trace the interactions between Sicily and mainalnd Greece back to the Bronze Age[[/note]] melting pot of native tribesmen, Greeks, Arabs, Romans, Germanic tribes (Goths, Vandals), French Normans, and then Spaniards. Sicily has a history unlike any other place in the world, being simultaneously on the margins of great powers but also absolutely at the center of any shift in the BalanceOfPower in the Mediterranean. It's just not possible to understand a huge significant part of European history without understanding how the island fit into it, and taking into account its immense strategic importance. On account of its geographical position at the "neck" of the hourglass-shaped Mediterranean Sea, it has frequently been the center of war and power struggles among different powers. Many of the key incidents in the history of Ancient World have taken place in Sicily.

[[VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack If Italy is a boot, then Sicily is the football]]. It gets tossed back and forth between various great powers, and get screwed over left-right and center. It has historically been known for its poverty and backwardness, that led to large number of immigrants leaving for other shores. While that has happily changed for the better in recent years, it still has the highest rate of unemployment in Italy. It is the largest island of the Mediterranean, home of Mount Etna, and the site of 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites and it is an autonomous region of UsefulNotes/RepublicanItaly (one of five to enjoy said status).

The island of Sicily has its own dialect and its own culture, like every other region in Italy but Sicilians take it UpToEleven with its regionalism. Ethnically, Sicily was the USA before there was a USA. A melting pot of native tribesmen, Greeks, Arabs and barbarians (Germanic tribes, Goths, Vandals), even the Normans were down there for awhile. Sicily has a history unlike any other place in the world, being simultaneously on the margins of great powers but also absolutely at the center of any shift in the BalanceOfPower in the Mediterranean. It's just not possible to understand a huge significant part of European history without understanding how the island fit into it, and taking into account its immense strategic importance.

On account of its geographical position at the "neck" of the hourglass-shaped Mediterranean Sea, it has frequently been the center of war and power struggles among different powers. Many of the key incidents in the history of Ancient World have taken place in Sicily. This includes the disastrous Sicilian Expedition in UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar, that eventually played a major part in the end of the Delian League, and Alicibiades' poor management and defection to Sparta was invoked as justification to execute Creator/{{Socrates}}, who was Alcibiades' mentor. UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic's interference in the affairs of Sicily led to the UsefulNotes/PunicWars. During the second Punic War, Sicily, which largely backed Hannibal faced a siege and invasion by the Romans. The city-state of Syracuse was the home of the great scientist Archimedes, who was subsequently killed by a Roman legionnaire, despite orders to spare him. Sicilians under Rome often gave hell to the Republic. It was the site of two slave revolts, the first and second Servile Wars (overshadowed by the Third Servile War on account of ''Film/{{Spartacus}}''). The first one was led by Eunus, who claimed to be a Prophet, and the second one was led by a man named Salvius, who took the name Typhoon. Creator/{{Cicero}} made his political debut by denouncing the abuses of the corrupt Roman governor of Sicily, Verres. After UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar was assassinated, the Assassins and their supporters waged a civil war, and even after Brutus and Co. died in Philippi Greece, an independent non-Roman state based in Sicily held out against the Second Triumvirate. It was led by Sextus Pompey (son of UsefulNotes/PompeyTheGreat) and it led to Augustus launching a major amphibian campaign to take it down. Under Sextus Pompey, Sicily was a non-Roman province, and this was more or the last time Sicily would ever be independent from Rome until the end of the Western Roman Empire. The Romans did not invest greatly in the infrastructure of Sicily which largely retained its Greek character and influence.

[[UsefulNotes/WarsOfItalianIndependence The Risorgimento]], the Reunification of Italy, began with the Landing of Garibaldi's Thousand. At the end of the Reunification, the consequences of more than two thousand years of back-and-forth conquests came to the forefront. The Kingdoms and their aristocrats before the Republic had kept in place structures that while not helpful to the people, and indeed kept them impoverished at least provided them protection. The new Italian state, annulled all of that, leading to a crisis and breakdown whereby it was everyone for themselves. Land was bought and sold to middle-class speculators, and little in the way of compensation was given to the people. Naturally the people felt they had to protect themselves. And in this situation, TheMafia came into existence. The situation in Sicily led to massive emigration to other countries, most notably to America, and while most Sicilian immigrants were hard-working citizens, proud immigrant families and key parts of the working-class movements of the 19th and 20th Century, some of them were gangsters, and through them, the Sicilian Mafia became involved in American organized crime. The Mafia paradoxically became a holdout for opposition against Mussolini's UsefulNotes/FascistItaly who sent a special prefect to suppress them.

** ''La terra trema'' which adapts a famous collection of stories by Giovanni Verga.

* Creator/TonyScott and Creator/QuentinTarantino's ''Film/TrueRomance'' has the famous "Sicilian Monologue" where Creator/DennisHopper's character tells Don Coccotti (Creator/ChristopherWalken) that Sicilians have Moorish ancestry, and reminds him of Sicily's rich cultural history. He gets it wrong by stating that Sicilians were blue-eyed and blonde before the Arabs came, most of them were Latin and Greek, and the Arab settlers were not of a great number. The Normans followed are closer but a lot of them would have been red-head (since many of the Vikings who settled in Normandy and became Normans were actually from Viking-Irish mixed stock).

The island of Sicily has its own dialect and its own culture, like every other region in Italy but Sicilians take it UpToEleven with its regionalism. Ethnically, Sicily was the USA before there was a USA. A melting pot of native tribesmen, Greeks, Arabs and barbarians (Germanic tribes, Goths, Vandals), even [[UsefulNotes/TheVikingAge the Vikings]] were down there for awhile (as the Frenchified Normans--yes, the same ones who [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy conquered England in 1066]], or at least their cousins--but still). Sicily has a history unlike any other place in the world, being simultaneously on the margins of great powers but also absolutely at the center of any shift in the BalanceOfPower in the Mediterranean. It's just not possible to understand a huge significant part of European history without understanding how the island fit into it, and taking into account its immense strategic importance.

After Rome fell, UsefulNotes/{{Italy}} once again became divided into multiple warring states, but because of its riches and prestige, every aspiring great power wanted a part of it. And do you know, which is the island that serves as the nice landing area for an amphibian invasion of The Boot? The answer was obvious to UsefulNotes/FlaviusBelisarius who conquered it first for Justinian I's campaign to retake Italy, and he used that as a base. The Vikings also passed by and did a few smash-and-grab raids. Later during the rise of the Arab Empires, they took over and settled on the island, getting rid of the Byzantines on the island before being in turn removed by the Normans who established the Kingdom of Sicily under Roger I of the Hauteville dynasty. This was a major spark that led to UsefulNotes/TheCrusades, since both UsefulNotes/ThePope and the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire were unhappy about a new great power in the Mediterranean. Eventually Norman Sicily fell to the House of Hohenstaufen of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire and the island became part of the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict. After them, the Spanish Empire then took over: Sicily along with Naples were two major parts of Southern Italy ruled by the Spanish Crown. After UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars, they were merged into The Kingdom of Two Sicilies.

[[VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack If Italy is a boot, then Sicily is the football]]. It gets tossed back and forth between various great powers, and get screwed over left-right and center. It has historically been known for its poverty and backwardness, that led to large number of immigrants leaving for other shores. While that has happily changed for the better in recent years, it still has the highest rate of unemployment in Italy. It is the largest island of the Meditteranean, home of Mount Etna, and the site of 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites and it is an autonomous region of UsefulNotes/RepublicanItaly (one of five to enjoy said status).

** ''Rocco and His Brothers'' deals with the plight of a Sicilian family migrating to Milan for work and opportunity, which happened a lot in TheFifties.

* A number of WorldWarII films are also set in Sicily:

[[VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack If Italy is a boot, then Sicily is the football]]. It gets tossed back and forth between various great powers, and get screwed over left-right and center. It has historically been known for its poverty and backwardness, that led to large number of immigrants leaving for other shores. While that has happily changed for the better in recent years, it still has the highest rate of unemployment in Italy. It is the largest island of the Meditteranean, home of Mount Etna, and the site of 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites and it is an autonomous region of RepublicanItaly (one of five to enjoy said status).

After Rome fell, UsefulNotes/{{Italy}} once again became divided into multiple warring states, but because of its riches and prestige, every aspiring great power wanted a part of it. And do you know, which is the island that serves as the nice landing area for an amphibian invasion of The Boot? The answer was obvious to UsefulNotes/FlaviusBelisarius who conquered it first for Justinian I's campaign to retake Italy, and he used that as a base. The Vikings also passed by and did a few smash-and-grab raids. Later during the rise of the Arab Empires, they took over and settled on the island, getting rid of the Byzantines on the island before being in turn removed by the Normans who established the Kingdom of Sicily under Roger I of the Hauteville dynasty. This was a major spark that led to UsefulNotes/TheCrusades, since both UsefulNotes/ThePope and the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire were unhappy about a new great power in the Mediterranean. Eventually Norman Sicily fell to the House of Hohenstaufen of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire and the island became part of the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict. After them, the Spanish Empire then took over: Sicily along with Naples were two major parts of Southern Italy ruled by the Crown. After UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars, they were merged into The Kingdom of Two Sicilies.

[[VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack If Italy is a boot, then Sicily is the football]]. It gets tossed back and forth between various great powers, and get screwed over left-right and center. The island has been occupied by everyone from the Athenians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Normans, the Spanish, all the way to the 20th Century, where the Nazis spent some time there, followed shortly by the Brits and the Yanks. It has historically been known for its poverty and backwardness, that led to large number of immigrants leaving for other shores. While that has happily changed for the better in recent years, it still has the highest rate of unemployment in Italy. It is the largest island of the Meditteranean Sea, home of Mount Etna, and the site of 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites and it is an autonomous region of RepublicanItaly (one of five to enjoy it).

The island of Sicily has its own dialect and its own culture, like every other region in Italy but Sicilians take it UpToEleven with its regionalism. Ethnically, Sicily was the USA before there was a USA. A melting pot of native tribesmen, Greeks, Arabs and barbarians (Germanic tribes, Goths, Vandals), even [[UsefulNotes/TheVikingAge the Vikings]] were down there for awhile (as the Frenchified Normans--yes, the same ones who [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy conquered England in 1066]], or at least their cousins--but still). Sicily has a history unlike any other place in the world, being simultaneously on the margins of great powers but also absolutely at the center of any shift in the BalanceOfPower in the Mediterranean. It's just not possible to understand a huge significant part of European history without understanding how the island fit into it.

On account of its geographical position at the "neck" of the hourglass-shaped Mediterranean Sea, it has frequently been the center of war and power struggles among different powers. Many of the key incidents in the history of Ancient Greece and Rome have taken place in Sicily. This includes the disastrous Sicilian Expedition in UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar, that eventually played a major part in the end of the Delian League, and Alicibiades' poor management and defection to Sparta was invoked as justification to execute Creator/{{Socrates}}. UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic's interference in the affairs of Sicily led to the UsefulNotes/PunicWars. During the second Punic War, Sicily, which largely backed Hannibal faced a siege and invasion by the Romans, which led to the death of Archimedes at the hands of a Roman legionnaire. The great Archimedes is one of the many brilliant individuals who came from Sicily. Sicilians under Rome often gave hell to the Republic. It was the site of two slave uprising, the first and second Servile Wars. The first one was led by Eunus, who claimed to be a Prophet, and the second one was led by a man named Salvius, who took the name Typhoon. Creator/{{Cicero}} made his political career by denouncing the abuses of the corrupt Roman governor of Sicily Verres. After UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar was assassinated, the Assassins and their supporters waged a civil war. Even after Brutus and Co. died in Philippi Greece, an independent non-Roman state led by Sextus Pompey (son of UsefulNotes/PompeyTheGreat) held out against the Second Triumvirate, leading Augustus to launch a major amphibian campaign to take it down. Under Sextus Pompey, Sicily was a non-Roman province, and this was more or less the last time Sicily would ever be independent from Rome until the end of the Western Roman Empire.

The island of Sicily has its own dialect and its own culture, like every other region in Italy but Sicilians take it UpToEleven with its regionalism. Ethnically, Sicily was the USA before there was a USA. A melting pot of native tribesmen, Greeks, Arabs and barbarians (Germanic tribes, Goths, Vandals), even [[UsefulNotes/TheVikingAge the Vikings]] were down there for awhile (as the Frenchified Normans--yes, the same ones who [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy conquered England in 1066]], or at least their cousins--but still). Sicily has a history unlike any other place in the world, being simultaneously on the margins of great powers but also absolutely at the center of any shift in the BalanceOfPower in the Mediterranean. It's just not possible to understand a huge significant part of European history without understanding how the island fit into it. On account of its geographical position at the "neck" of the hourglass-shaped Mediterranean Sea, it has frequently been the center of war and power struggles among different powers. Many of the key incidents in the history of Ancient Greece and Rome have taken place in Sicily. This includes the disastrous Sicilian Expedition in UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar, that eventually played a major part in the end of the Delian League, and Alicibiades' poor management and defection to Sparta was invoked as justification to execute Creator/{{Socrates}}. UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic's interference in the affairs of Sicily led to the UsefulNotes/PunicWars. During the second Punic War, Sicily, which largely backed Hannibal faced a siege and invasion by the Romans, which led to the death of Archimedes at the hands of a Roman legionnaire. The great Archimedes is one of the many brilliant individuals who came from Sicily. Sicilians under Rome often gave hell to the Republic. It was the site of two slave uprising, the first and second Servile Wars. The first one was led by Eunus, who claimed to be a Prophet, and the second one was led by a man named Salvius, who took the name Typhoon. Creator/{{Cicero}} made his political career by denouncing the abuses of the corrupt Roman governor of Sicily Verres. After UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar was assassinated, the Assassins and their supporters waged a civil war. Even after Brutus and Co. died in Philippi Greece, an independent non-Roman state led by Sextus Pompey (son of UsefulNotes/PompeyTheGreat) held out against the Second Triumvirate, leading Augustus to launch a major amphibian campaign to take it down. Under Sextus Pompey, Sicily was a non-Roman province, and this was more or less the last time Sicily would ever be independent from Rome until the end of the Western Roman Empire.

[[VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack If Italy is a boot, then Sicily is the football]]. It gets tossed back and forth between various great powers, and get screwed over left-right and center. The island is filled with architecture and artifacts from AncientGreece, Rome, Normans, Arabs, Spanish all the way to the 20th Century, where the Nazis followed shortly by the Brits and the Yanks, but it has historically known for poverty and backwardness, that led to large number of immigrants leaving for other shores. While that has happily changed for the better in recent years, it still has the highest rate of unemployment in Italy. It is the largest island of the Meditteranean Sea, home of Mount Etna, and the site of 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites and it is an autonomous region of RepublicanItaly (one of five to enjoy it).

** ''Paisa'' by Creator/RobertoRossellini has episodes showing the American invasion of the Island.
** ''Film/TheBigRedOne'' by Creator/SamuelFuller which shows the Allied Infantry's lan ding in Sicily.
* ''Film/DivorceItalianStyle'' a classic Italian comedy by Pietro Germi.

->''"You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is never get involved a land war with Asia, but slightly less well known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"''
-->-- '''Vizzini''', '''''Film/ThePrincessBride'''''

OK, that's not true (it didn't work for Vizzini). [[VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack If Italy is a boot, then Sicily is the football]].

Once part of the Magna Grecia and of the Kingdom of Sicily, the island of Sicily has its own dialect, its own culture (like ''every other region'' in Italy) and special autonomous status in RepublicanItaly (like five other regions in UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}).

Ethnically, Sicily was the USA before there was a USA. A melting pot of Romans, Greeks, Arabs and barbarians (Germanic tribes, Goths, Vandals)... even [[UsefulNotes/TheVikingAge the Vikings]] were down there for awhile (as the Frenchified Normans--yes, the same ones who [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy conquered England in 1066]], or at least their cousins--but still).

Historically, Sicily has a still more interesting history. On account of its geographical position at the "neck" of the hourglass-shaped Mediterranean Sea, it has frequently been the center of war and power struggles among different powers. Many of the key incidents in the history of Ancient Greece and Rome have taken place in Sicily. This includes the disastrous Sicilian Expedition in UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar, the Landing of Garibaldi's Thousand during the Risorgimento and in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the Allied entry into the island was what caused Italy's HeelFaceTurn and UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini getting booted out of power.

Sicily has the reputation of historically being close to the centre of gravity in Mediterranean geopolitics, but paradoxically, the Sicilian people feel that they have been neglected or marginalized by the North of Italy and all the European powers. They have been conquered by Greeks, Romans, Normans, Germans, Arabs and Spaniards. The constant foreign influx into the island nation has left its mark on regional politics, leaving a mess of grudges and feuds between villagers and classes who feel one or the other, at various times, has profitted under some earlier foreigner or the other. This vendetta culture was already present before the rise of Sicily's most notorious export TheMafia. For a long time, Sicilians have yearned for independence or something close to it and many continue to do so.

! Notes
* Sicilian culture has perhaps had a bigger role in shaping international stereotypes about Italy than the North. Because of increasing poverty, vast quantities of Sicilians counted among Italian Americans. The rise of TheMafia and the gangster films of Sicilian-American Creator/MartinScorsese among others has certainly contributed greatly to it. Several of the most famous events in ''Film/TheGodfather'' take place in Sicily as the pagequote above shows. Notions people have about Italy, such as a homeland still mired in traditional vendetta culture, small villages, corrupt ''padrones'' and a strong Catholic presence have more to do with Sicily at the dawn of the 20th Century than other parts of Italy at the time.

Ethnically, Sicily was the USA before there was a USA. A melting pot of Romans, Greeks, Arabs and barbarians (Germanic tribes, Goths, Vandals)... even the Vikings were down there for awhile (as the Frenchified Normans--yes, the same ones who [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy conquered England in 1066]], or at least their cousins--but still).

Once part of the Magna Grecia and of the Kingdom of Sicily, the island of Sicily has its own dialect, its own culture (like ''every other region'' in Italy) and special autonomous status in RepublicanItaly (like five other regions in Italy).

Ethnically, Sicily was the USA before there was a USA. A melting pot of Romans, Greeks, Arabs and barbarians (Germanic tribes, Goths, Vandals)... even the Vikings were down there for awhile.

->''"You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!]] The most famous of which is never get involved a land war with Asia, but slightly less well known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"''

->''"[[OutGambitted You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!]] The most famous of which is never get involved a land war with Asia, but slightly less well known is this: [[FamousLastWords Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!]]"''

Once part of the Magna Grecia and of the Kingdom of Sicily, the island of Sicily has its own dialect, a slightly different culture (like all other 20 regions in Italy) and special autonomous status in RepublicanItaly (like five other regions in Italy). Historically, Sicily has a deeply interesting history. On account of its geographical position at the "neck" of the hourglass-shaped Mediterranean Sea, it has frequently been the center of war and power struggles among different powers. Many of the key incidents in the history of Ancient Greece and Rome have taken place in Sicily. This includes the disastrous Sicilian Expedition in UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar, the Landing of Garibaldi's Thousand during the Risorgimento and in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the Allied entry into the island was what caused Italy's HeelFaceTurn and UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini getting booted out of power.

* Sicilian culture has perhaps had a bigger role in shaping international stereotypes about Italy than the North. Because of increasing poverty, vast quantities of Sicilians counted among ItalianAmericans. The rise of TheMafia and the gangster films of Sicilian-American Creator/MartinScorsese among others has certainly contributed greatly to it. Several of the most famous events in ''Film/TheGodfather'' take place in Sicily as the pagequote above shows. Notions people have about Italy, such as a homeland still mired in traditional vendetta culture, small villages, corrupt ''padrones'' and a strong Catholic presence have more to do with Sicily at the dawn of the 20th Century than other parts of Italy at the time.

Once part of the Magna Grecia and of the Kingdom of Sicily, the island of Sicily has its own dialect, a slightly different culture (like all other 20 regions in Italy) and special autonomous status in RepublicanItaly (like five other regions in Italy). Sicily's position at the "neck" of the hourglass-shaped Mediterranean Sea has made it a coveted strategic location and the island has seen more then it's fair share of war and been transferred from power to power. In WorldWarII, the Allied entry into the island was what caused Italy's HeelFaceTurn and UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini getting booted out of power. Occasionally it has seen a time of independence or near independence notably under the Medieval Norman Kings.

Historically, home of TheMafia.

Once part of the Magna Grecia and of the Kingdom of Sicily, the island of Sicily has its own dialect, a slightly different culture (like all other 20 regions in Italy) and special autonomous status in RepublicanItaly (like five other regions in Italy). Sicily's position at the "neck" of the hourglass-shaped Mediterranean Sea has made it a coveted strategic location and the island has seen more then it's fair share of war and been transferred from power to power. In WorldWarII, the Allied entry into the island was what caused Italy's HeelFaceTurn and BenitoMussolini getting booted out of power. Occasionally it has seen a time of independence or near independence notably under the Medieval Norman Kings.

->''"...but slightly less well known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"''

->''"Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"''

OK, that's not true (it didn't work for Vizzini). If Italy is a boot, then Sicily is the football.

->''Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!''