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Italy in the middle of the 19th century was divided into a number of states. Liberals and Nationalist began to unite and rise up. 1848 rebellions broke out Sicily and Austrian controlled Venice in Milan. Austrian general von Raddatz planned on retaking Milan. Kingdom of piedmont-sardinian was ruled by Charles Albert, he put down liberal uprisings supported in Spain and Portugal. Australians who were preoccupied with revolutions in Hungary and Vienna clever sites here held and Milan and Venice voted to join the kingdom of piedmont-sardinia. French troops were able to capture Rome and French troops remained in the city until 1870. The first war ended in August where the Italian unification ended in failure.

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First Italian Unification War | 3 Minute History

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As World War 1 came and went Mexico was involved in a decade of revolution from 1910 to 1920. The revolution ended with a new constitution. Mexico was ruled by local dictators known as qua Diaz. He kept firm control over Mexico around 1900. There was a large gap between rich and poor. Francisco Madero emerged as the voice of the people. Madero was removed from power because he was seen as an unfit ruler, and later on killed. Government was able to seize land, for public interest.

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Mexican Revolution Review - One Minute Lesson

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The enlightenment was the cause of the French revolution. France was under control of absolute monarchy. Under Louis XVI. The seven years war expenses have done damage economically. People were passing hunger, while the kings had luxury. First state was the Churches, they didn't pay taxes. Second state was the Nobles they also didn't pay taxes. Third state was 97% of the population, they payed 100% of the taxes. Storm of Bastille was the start of the revolution.

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The article talks about Franco-Austrian War,1859. Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, 1861. U.S. Recognition of Italian Independence, 1861. Addition of Venetia, 1866. Incorporation of Rome, 1870. U.S. Legation to the Kingdom of Italy moves to Florence and then Rome, 1865-71. Last but not least the article talked
Overall Impact upon U.S. Foreign Policy.

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Summary

For many centuries, the Italian peninsula was a politically fragmented conglomeration of states. This was the case when the United States announced its independence from Great Britain in 1776. When war broke out between Austria and the Revolutionary French Government in 1792, the French invaded the Italian peninsula, consolidated many of the Italian states, and established them as republics. In 1799 the Austrian and Russian armies pushed the French out of the Italian peninsula, which led to the demise of the fledgling republics.

After Napoleon's rise to power, the Italian peninsula was once again conquered by the French. Under Napoleon, the peninsula was divided into three entities: the northern parts which were annexed to the French Empire (Piedmont, Liguria, Parma, Piacenza, Tuscany, and Rome), the newly created Kingdom of Italy (Lombardy, Venice, Reggio, Modena, Romagna, and the Marshes) ruled by Napoleon himself, and the Kingdom of Naples, which was first ruled by Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte, but then passed to Napoleon's brother-in-law Joachim Murat.

The period of French invasion and occupation was important in many ways. It introduced revolutionary ideas about government and society, resulting in an overthrow of the old established ruling orders and the destruction of the last vestiges of feudalism. The ideals of freedom and equality were very influential. Also of consequence, the concept of nationalism was introduced, thus sowing the seeds of Italian nationalism throughout most parts of the northern and central Italian peninsula.

With the downfall of Napoleon in 1814 and the redistribution of territory by the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), most of the Italian states were reconstituted: the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (often referred to as Sardinia), the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Parma, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (fused together from the old Kingdom of Naples and Kingdom of Sicily). These were largely conservative regimes, presided over by the old social orders.

Although the Italian peninsula remained fragmented through the mid-1800s, the concept of a united Italy began to take root. Secret societies formed to oppose the conservative regimes. Several of these societies also promoted Italian nationalism and the idea of a unified Italian political state. One such society was the group Young Italy, founded in 1831 by Guiseppe Mazzini. Mazzini was an ardent advocate of the necessity for Italian unification through the desires and actions of the Italian people. Thus, the movement of Italian unification, a process referred to as the Risorgimento (resurgence) proliferated by mid-century.

The revolutions of 1848 ignited nationalist sentiment throughout the Italian peninsula. There were widespread uprisings in several Italian cities that year, mostly by the professional classes (such as doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers) as well as students. Lombardy-Venetia and Milan tried to rise up against Austrian rule. Although the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia sent troops to aid the revolt, it was crushed by the Austrians at Custoza in July 1848. The Italian uprisings were unsuccessful and by 1849 the old regimes were once again in place.

Yet, the idea of the Risorgimento continued to gain adherents after 1848. The final push for Italian unification came in 1859, led by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (then the wealthiest and most liberal of the Italian states), and orchestrated by Piedmont-Sardinia's Prime Minister, Count Camillo di Cavour. A skilled diplomat, Cavour secured an alliance with France. The Franco-Austrian War of 1859 was the agent that began the physical process of Italian unification. The Austrians were defeated by the French and Piedmontese at Magenta and Solferino, and thus relinquished Lombardy. By the end of the year Lombardy was added to the holdings of Piedmont-Sardinia.

The northern Italian states held elections in 1859 and 1860 and voted to join the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a major step towards unification, while Piedmont-Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to France. Giuseppi Garibaldi, a native of Piedmont-Sardinia, was instrumental in bringing the southern Italian states into the unification process. In 1860, Garibaldi cobbled together an army (referred to as the "Thousand") to march into the southern part of the peninsula. Landing first in Sicily and then moving onwards into Naples, Garibaldi and his men overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and turned over the southern territories to Victor Emmanuel II, King of Piedmont-Sardinia. In early 1861 a national parliament convened and proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, with Victor Emmanuel II as its king. At this point, there were only two major territories outside of the parameters of the new Kingdom of Italy: Rome and Venetia.

In 1866 Italy joined Prussia in a campaign against Austria (the 1866 Austro-Prussian War) and thus won Venetia. In 1870, taking advantage of the fact that France (the country responsible at the time for guarding the Papal States) was distracted by involvement in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), the Italian army entered Rome. That year, Rome and the Papal States were incorporated into Italy and the Risorgimento completed. During the summer of 1871, the Italian capital moved to Rome from Florence (it was moved from Turin to Florence in 1865).

Major Events

Overall Impact upon U.S. Foreign Policy

The history of recognitions (and the establishment of relations, where applicable) between the United States and the Italian states impacted several different areas of U.S. policy, including:

Trade and Commerce. The industrialization process that swept through the northern United States in the early nineteenth century spread through the northern and central Italian states in the mid-nineteenth century. As a result, the Italian states (and after 1861, the Kingdom of Italy) and the United States both sought to cultivate trade and commercial ties for mutual benefit.

Immigration and Citizenship. By the 1870s Italian immigration to the New World (both to the United States as well as to Argentina, amongst other South American countries) began to increase. Indeed, some of the "fathers" of modern Italy spent time in the United States. Garibaldi spent enough time in the U.S. to gain a U.S. passport, and was offered a commission in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.

U.S. Civil War. The unification of the Italian states impacted the foreign policy of the United States in numerous ways. Perhaps the issue that had the most immediate impact upon U.S. foreign policy in the early 1860s was over the question of recognition of the U.S. Confederacy. The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed just as the U.S. Civil War began. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wanted to ensure that the new Italian state did not recognize the U.S. Confederacy. Washington also worried that, with Italy's long coastline, Confederate ships might seek shelter in Italian waters. With this in mind, the Italian government gave "strong assurances that no Confederate ship would be admitted to Italian ports unless it was a question of adverse weather conditions or other vis major."

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Unification of Italian States - Countries - Office of the Historian

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The article talks about the background of the Mexican revolution, Art, Literature, and the Revolution, Mexican Muralist Movement: Art for the People, Telling the People’s Story, The Corridos: A Musical Legacy of the Mexican Revolution.

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The Mexican Revolution, which began on November 20, 1910, and continued for a decade, is recognized as the first major political, social, and cultural revolution of the 20th century. In order to better understand this decade-long civil war, we offer an overview of the main players on the competing sides, primary source materials for point of view analysis, discussion of how the arts reflected the era, and links to Chronicling America, a free digital database of historic newspapers, that covers this period in great detail.

Background

Prior to the arrival of European conquistadors, the region now known as Mexico was home to one of the world's most advanced Empires: the Aztecs. After a brutal period of colonialism and eventual conquest in 1521, the most powerful citizens were European, Spanish-born citizens or the peninsulares living in the New World. Three centuries later, in 1821, the war for Independence (starting in 1810) ended, freeing Mexico from New Spain. This was a war that, however, benefited mainly the criollo (Spanish-blooded upper class) minority. A century later, in 1910, the majority of the population of Mexico were , half-indigenous and half-Spanish-blooded Mexicans, and these indigenous peoples again rose up in a violent armed struggle, the Mexican Revolution.

The motives for waging the Mexican Revolution grew out of the belief that a few wealthy landowners could no longer continue the old ways of Spanish colonial rule; a feudal-like system called la encomienda. That system needed to be replaced by a modern one in which those who actually worked the land should extract its wealth through their labor.

Two great figures, Francisco "Pancho" Villa from the north of Mexico and Emiliano Zapata from the south, led the revolution and remain key cultural and historical symbols in this fight for social reform. The (supporter of land reform) ideals of Zapata and his followers, the Zapatistas, are summarized in their mottos: "Tierra y Libertad" ("Land and Freedom") and "La tierra es para el que la trabaja" ("The land is for those who work it"). These slogans have not ceased to resonate in Mexican society.

The Mexican Revolution started in 1910, when liberals and intellectuals began to challenge the regime of dictator Porfirio Díaz, who had been in power since 1877, a term of 34 years called El Porfiriato, violating the principles and ideals of the Mexican Constitution of 1857.

In late 1910, Francisco I. Madero, in exile for his political activism, drafted the Plan de San Luis Potosí (Plan of San Luis Potosí), which was widely distributed and embraced by rebel movements across the nation. In this plan, Madero called for an uprising starting on November 20, 1910, to restore the Constitution of 1857 and replace dictator Díaz with a provisional government. Its main purpose was to establish a democratic republic and to abolish unlimited presidential terms. By early 1911, a large armed struggle was underway in the northern state of Chihuahua led by local merchant Pascual Orozco and Francisco "Pancho" Villa. The success of the northern troops, or La División del Norte, sparked uprisings against terratenientes across the country. (For this and other key terms see glossary).

In the southern state of Morelos, as early as 1909, Emiliano Zapata had started recruiting thousands of peasants to fight for land reform in support of El Plan de Ayala, approved by Zapata's supporters in 1911. Under this plan land reform to help campesinos (landless peasants) by re-distributing the land back to the peasants and away from powerful landowners was paramount.

On May 25, 1911, Mexican President Porfirio Díaz resigned and left the country. Former exile, Francisco I. Madero, author of the Plan of San Luis Potosí (mentioned above) became president after the elections in 1911. He was assassinated in early 1913 by a commander of the federal forces, Victoriano Huerta, who joined the counterrevolutionaries led by Porfirio Díaz's nephew in order to seize power. Huerta dissolved the congress after the assassination of Madero and assumed power, but faced heavy opposition. In 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent American Marines to Vera Cruz, Mexico, to support the revolutionaries. Students can examine this intervention via the EDSITEment lesson " To Elect Good Men": Woodrow Wilson and Latin America." Loosing key battles to revolutionary troops, Huerta resigned in the same year and left the country.

After the end of the Huerta's presidency, Venustiano Carranza, a wealthy landowner and chief of the Northern Coalition, gathered revolutionary and military leaders to a conference to determine the future of Mexico. Villa, Zapata, and their followers supported the Plan de Ayala for land reform (see above), in opposition to Carranza and his supporters, all of whom supported the Plan de San Luis Potosí.

Eventually, Carranza (now supported by the United States) and his followers, called for a constitutional convention to draft a supreme law of Mexico, which was later presented to congress. The final version was approved in 1917, enshrining agrarian reform and unprecedented economic rights for the Mexican people. After approval of this constitution, in 1917, Carranza as the president of Mexico proceeded to ignore its promises. As a consequence, the revolution continued until 1920. Carranza was assassinated and General Álvaro Obregón rose to power.

Art, Literature, and the Revolution

The Mexican Revolution gave birth to a variety of new artistic currents in literature, the visual arts, and music. The literature of the Mexican Revolution is a rich field and includes works recognized as masterpieces of Latin American literature such as Los de abajo ( The Underdogs) by Mariano Azuela, which was published in 1915 and remains a literary classic.

Born in 1873, Azuela was a field physician with the revolutionary troops of the north. His own experiences and the circumstances that drove people to fight in the revolution, as well as the often brutal conditions of war, are depicted in his novel with sometimes crude realism. The novel narrates the story of Demetrio Macías, who is considered an enemy to the local terrateniente and has to escape persecution. He leaves his family and escapes to the mountains, gathering a group of people to fight in the Mexican Revolution against the troops of General Huerta. The different kinds of people who are part of the Demetrio Macías group represent the diverse factions that fought in the revolution: the educated and idealistic men; the desperate and poor campesinos; and the different types of women who joined the struggle. Towards the end of the book, the revolutionaries appear to have lost sight of their initial goals and ideals and morale disappears.

A more recent novel, Pam Muñoz's Esperanza Rising, tells the story of the migrants who fled to United States from a teenage girl's point of view. The EDSITEment lesson Esperanza Rising: Learning Not to Be Afraid to Start Again (also available in a Spanish version) will be useful for teachers who want to reflect on the human costs of the Mexican Revolution.

Other forms of cultural expression dealing with the Mexican Revolution include the muralist movement in painting and music. It is worth to also note that some of the most popular foods in Mexico (and outside of Mexico) come from the days of the Mexican Revolution, including famous "foods-on-the-run," such as "" or "tacos de discada norteña."

Mexican Muralist Movement: Art for the People, Telling the People's Story

Once the armed struggle ended, it was necessary to rebuild a shattered nation. Newly elected president, General Álvaro Obregón named José Vasconcelos secretary of public education. Vasconcelos had a serious challenge: How to succeed in educating the people of a country in which the overwhelming majority were illiterate? Public art was to be part of the answer, and a solution to start educating the nation was attempted through the Muralist Painting movement. Among the most important muralists are " Los tres grandes" ("The Three Great Ones"): Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The Muralists viewed art not primarily as an aesthetic or expressive product but as an educative one, an art of the people.

The Muralist Movement lasted approximately half a century, from the early 1920s to the 1970s. Through it, both the art and culture of Mexico were put at the service of society and the ideals of the Mexican Revolution. Muralist painters, many of whom were no strangers to political activism, used the walls of public buildings, palaces, universities, and libraries to tell both the story of the revolution and of the daily life of the people. The mural paintings defined the nation's identity and recognized Mexico's indigenous ancestry. They documented the suffering of the indigenous at the hands of the Spanish conquistadores, while also recognizing Mexico's shared history and culture. The Mexican muralists influenced artists throughout the Americas, and some murals were painted in the United States, including the Epic of American Civilization by José Clemente Orozco at Dartmouth College.

The Corridos: A Musical Legacy of the Mexican Revolution

The tradition of the of the Mexican Revolution can be traced to medieval Europe's mester de juglaría (ministry of troubadours). The -the recording of events in song-are stories told in poetic form and sung to simple music, much like English ballads, that use colloquial language. The corridos grew in popularity in Mexico during the 1800s, but the Mexican Revolution, which took place in a predominantly illiterate nation with a dismantled infrastructure, gave birth to a large number of them that narrated a variety of events, such as important battles, or celebrated great leaders and fighters of the revolution.

Therefore, the corridos became a way to record, celebrate, or mourn events, places, or people during the revolution: very much like a newspaper put to music. The corrido tradition documents aspects of Mexico's culture and identity on a wide variety of subjects. For instance, each state of Mexico has its own corrido documenting important characteristics, products, regions, and people. There are also corridos dedicated to the soldaderas, the storied, iconic female soldiers of the revolution-and even to famous horses.

In a corrido, the singer, or corridista, generally prefaces the performance by supplying the place, date, and lead character of the corrido to the audience, and then develops a story about him/her told in song. The corrido usually ends with a friendly farewell. Corridos do not hesitate to praise and romanticize great leaders as heroes, and label as "traitors" those who opposed the revolution. General Victoriano Huerta, who was president of Mexico for less than one year, is referred to in the corrido "The Taking over of Zacatecas," as a "drunkard" with "twisted feet."

Listen to corridos, and see the lyrics (bilingual), while singer Antonio Aguilar performs, accompanied by .

"La toma de Zacatecas" (VIDEO) commemorates, celebrates and documents an important battle during the Mexican Revolution.

"El centauro de oro" (VIDEO) is dedicated to Francisco "Pancho" Villa, calling him by his nickname. His soldiers were called "Los dorados" ("The Golden Ones"). This celebrates Francisco Villa and his immortality in the history of Mexico.

"Corrido del general Zapata," (VIDEO) is a corrido to honor Emiliano Zapata, also called "El Atila del Sur" ("Atila of the South"). This celebrates the great revolutionary leader of the south.

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The Mexican Revolution: November 20th, 1910

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The Mexican Revolution, which began on November 20, 1910, and continued for a decade, is recognized as the first major political, social, and cultural revolution of the 20th century.

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The article talks about National Assembly, Madame Guillotine, Emperor of the French.

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John and Abigail Adams | Article

Throughout the 18th century, France faced a mounting economic crisis. A rapidly growing population had outpaced the food supply. A severe winter in 1788 resulted in famine and widespread starvation in the countryside. Rising prices in Paris brought bread riots. By 1789 France was broke. The nobility refused to pay more taxes, and the peasants simply couldn't. Even the opulent King Louis XVI, fonder of hunting and locksmithing than governing, recognized that a crisis loomed. He convened the Estates-General, made up of the Roman Catholic clergy (the First Estate) the nobility (the Second Estate), and everyone else (The Third Estate). The First and Second Estates owned most of the land and were lightly taxed; the Third owned little and was heavily taxed.

La Bastille, Courtesy: Library of Congress

National Assembly
On June 17, 1789, after Louis denied its petition for a one man-one vote policy, the Third Estate seceded and formed the National Assembly. On July 11 Louis XVI ordered the army to disband it. On July 14 a mob stormed the Bastille prison in Paris looking for arms to protect itself from the king's forces. The capture of the Bastille ignited one of the greatest social upheavals in Western history, the French Revolution. Violence spread to the countryside, where peasants demanded the feudal system be dismantled. Fearing powerlessness, the nobility and landowners joined the National Assembly. On August 27, it issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man, guaranteeing all French citizens freedom of speech, press, and religion, as well as a representative government and equality before the law. Some citizens, however, were more equal than others; women and slaves were excluded, and only property owners could hold seats in the new legislature.

King Louis XVI, courtesy: Corbis

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!
The following summer, the National Assembly created a new constitution. While King Louis XVI remained the nominal head of state, the National Assembly held all legislative power. On June 20, 1791, Louis and his family, including his despised Austrian queen, Marie-Antoinette, attempted to flee France and were captured. The newly created Legislative Assembly wanted to spread the revolution across Europe. In April 1792, France declared war on Austria. The war went badly, and Louis XVI was blamed. Accused of treason, he was stripped of his title and imprisoned. In September 1792 a new National Convention declared France a republic and abolished the monarchy. On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was marched to the guillotine. His severed head was paraded for the gathered thousands and met with cries of "Vive la Republique!"

Maximilien Robespierre, Courtesy: Library of Congress

Madame Guillotine
On September 5, 1793, Maximilien Robespierre began the Reign of Terror in response to the invasion of France by foreign troops. Thousands of so-called counterrevolutionaries were slaughtered; estimates range from 14,000 to 40,000. France remained in Robespierre's bloody grip for 10 months until he too was captured and beheaded. With the Reign of Terror over, France found some peace, but the country remained at war with Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Spain following Louis XVI's execution.

Napoleon, Courtesy: Corbis

Emperor of the French
In 1795, a new constitution was adopted, with the Directory - five men elected from the National Assembly - acting as an executive branch and remaining in power throughout much of John Adams presidency. Four years later, Napoleon Bonaparte and his army overthrew the Directory and signed the Convention of 1800 with the United States, a commercial agreement that ended the so-called Quasi War. Napoleon would eventually declare himself "Emperor of the French." John Adams had feared just such a chaotic end: A revolution of this sort, he had argued, would lead not to democracy but despotism. France had abolished its monarchy only to find itself under the rule of an emperor. Years later Thomas Jefferson would admit that his own support for the French Revolution was misguided: "Your prophecies," he wrote to Adams, "... proved truer than mine. ... I did not, in '89, believe they would have lasted so long, nor have cost so much blood."

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The French Revolution | American Experience | PBS

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The capture of the Bastille ignited one of the greatest social upheavals in Western history, the French Revolution.