Located in southern Italy, in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Sicilia is shaped like a triangle across the Strait of Messina, just 3 km wide, across the Apennine Peninsula. The island has an area of 25,700 square kilometers and a population of about 5 million, which is a little smaller than China's Hainan Island. The terrain of Sicily is also very similar to that of Hainan Island, with mountainous hills in the central region, and population and economic activity are mainly distributed in the coastal area around the island.
The following is written after I drank a glass of red wine, so you can take a look at it
Sicily's geographical location is extremely important, and if you want to control Europe, you can attack and retreat if you want to occupy Sicily. Because of this, Sicily has been a land of many wars since ancient times, and Greece, Carthage, Rome, Byzantium, Arabia, Austria, Spain, The Ottomans, etc. have all touched here. The process of the period can be described in detail in a thick book, and those who are interested can refer to the "Trilogy of Mediterranean Epics" written by the British historian Roger Crowley, which will not be repeated here.
In 1860 (the year of the Xianfeng Decade of the Qing Dynasty, the year when China's Yuanmingyuan was set on fire by the Anglo-French coalition), in order to complete the great cause of Italian unification, Garibaldi himself recruited more than a thousand volunteers to expedition from Genoa to Sicily to complete what Galgaul considered to be the "madman's cause", which is the famous "Thousand Man Expeditionary Force" in history. Because this team is all dressed in red, it is also known as the "Red Shirt Army". The Red Shirts, with the support of the sicilian natives, eventually captured Sicily, and the following year Sicily was officially annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. Later Italy, although it underwent changes from the age of the kingdom to the republic, Sicily remains to this day as part of a unified Italy. The "Garibaldi" and "Cavour", which played a major role in the great cause of Italian unification, were later used to name the aircraft carriers of the Italian Navy.
Speaking of Sicily, we have to start with two movies, one is "The Beautiful Legend of Sicily" and the other is "The Godfather".
First of all, "The Beautiful Legend of Sicily", the background of the era is the change of Sicily during World War II, Italy, which joined the Axis group, the combat effectiveness is really not flattering, and Germany had to take over the defense of Sicily, Italy. In 1943, germany's offensive momentum was gone, and the Allies began to prepare to attack the European continent, choosing in two directions, one was Calais at the narrowest point of the English Channel, and the other was Sicily, Italy, which Churchill called "the soft lower belly of Europe". In 1943, the Allies began to land in Sicily from Africa and Malta, but the war did not go well. Although the Allies were superior, they also paid a huge price. The entire Sicily Campaign lasted for a month, with more than 20,000 casualties. American soldiers, who have experienced life and death, poured out their desires that had nowhere to vent onto Sicilian women. Beauty gives women a high purity, and war makes women lose their dignity.
As for the story of the Sicilian mafia told by The Godfather, it is inseparable from the historical and cultural traditions of Sicily. In places that have been plagued by war, the clan is often strong, because in the face of external strong enemies, only the internal organization can survive. The Sicily Mafia originated in the European Middle Ages and evolved over the centuries to become another kind of order maintainer that transcends the law. In Sicily, the mafia represents a shadow government that is deeply permeated in society, economy, politics, and culture, maintaining power through violence. But now the mafia has long been separated from the original fight and killing, after all, out of the mix, always have to pay back. Since the 1990s, the mafia has usually appeared in front of the world with a whitewashed face, and if you don't dig deeper, people don't even feel the existence of this ubiquitous but illusory force. For example, the world's famous Shipping Company of Mediterranean Shipping (MSC), look at who the shareholders behind it, you can probably understand. Tourism, red wine, olive oil, became the label of the new era of Sicily.
Finally, to say more about Italy, the image of the "weak chicken" during World War II is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it also affects people's judgment to a certain extent, in fact, the country that can build high-end equipment such as aircraft carriers, main battle tanks, advanced submarines, advanced helicopters, etc., its strength should not be underestimated. The point is that no matter how it dies at the beginning, in the transformation of the international trend, Italy can always stand in the victorious team in the end, and this is not the kind of wisdom engraved into the bones after thousands of years of historical tradition
Traffic map
Tourist map
Administrative division map
Red wine map
Satellite view
Graffiti travel map
Pre-unification Italy was fragmented
Topographic map
Sicily's location in Italy