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September 20th, 1870 was the final event of the unification of Italy (Risorgimento), marking both the final defeat of the Papal States under Pope Pius IX and the unification of the Italian Peninsula (except San Marino) under the Kingdom of Italy.

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Italian and German Unification

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Italian and German Unification: Crash Course European History #27

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Christopher Columbus first sighted the coast of Venezuela in 1498. About two decades later, the Spanish began to settle in the country. At the time of the settlement, there were as many as 400,000 Amerindians inhabiting the region. This population, however, met with great decline as Spanish colonization brought warfare over valuable resources. During the 16 th century, the opening of gold mines in Yaracuy led to the introduction of slavery, at first of indigenous people, and later Africans. It is this history of indigenous settlement, European colonization, and the importation of African slaves that has contributed to modern Venezuela's racial diversity.

The Spanish government ruled Venezuela until the early 1800s, when political discontent began to grow in the colony. In 1810 the revolution to gain independence from Spain began and Venezuela declared its independence a year later on July 5, 1811. This independence, however, was not decisively won until Simón Bolívar's clear victory over the Spanish royalist army in 1821. It was also in 1821 that slavery was abolished and Simón Bolívar successfully integrated the ancient Spanish colonies that were in present-day Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador into the Gran Colombia. But this integration was short-lived as Venezuela seceded from the Gran Colombia in 1830.

Venezuela's early history was marked by revolutions, counterrevolutions, and dictatorships. A period of civil war began in 1846 and ended in 1870 when caudillo Antonio Guzmán assumed power. He retained power until his overthrow in 1888. Other notable dictators included Cipriano Castro who ruled between1899 and 1908. Castro caused Venezuela to incur large amounts of debt owed to European countries. When Castro refused to pay the country's outstanding loans, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy blockaded Venezuela's ports. The United States mediated this dispute in Washington D.C. and the dispute finally ended when the Hague Tribunal decided in favor of the European creditors in 1904. In July 1907, Venezuela met its obligations to the three powers. The following year, Juan Vicente Gómez usurped control from Castro, and Gómez remained in power until his death in 1935, with two interruptions (1915-1922; 1929-1931).

Although Gómez was illiterate, he had a keen sense for business. Under his rule, Venezuela developed its agricultural industry and discovered oil, making it one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America. Gómez set up a concessionary system in order to accommodate the foreign companies which flocked to Venezuela in order to lobby for rights of oil exploration and exploitation. By 1927, oil was Venezuela's most valuable export and by 1929 Venezuela was the leading global oil exporter. One of the most widespread critiques of Gómez is that he failed to let Venezuela experience the proportionate benefit from oil production by not imposing adequate taxes on oil companies. His defenders, however, assert that Gómez had to make oil investment attractive in order to encourage the burgeoning industry.

Venezuela continued to be beset by dictatorships during the 20 th century. It was not until 1947 that a constitution providing for popular vote by means of secret ballot was promulgated. But despite this promulgation, Venezuela's political system continued to fall prey to violence and corruption. Rómulo Gallegos Freire, a novelist and founder of the Acción Democratíca, was democratically elected as President and then took office in February 1948, but he was overthrown by an army revolt in November of that same year. On November 30, 1952, Col. Marcos Pérez Jiménez was elected President and a new constitution was promulgated in April of 1953. But, in January of 1958 he was forced to flee the country after a general strike in Caracas led to a popular uprising.

It was not until January 1961, with the reelection of President Rómulo Betancourt of the Acción Democrática, that Venezuela began to experience relative tranquility. Rafael Caldera Rodriguez was elected President in 1968 and he successfully stopped guerrilla and terrorist activities. He also pursued a policy of nationalizing foreign enterprises. In December 1973 Carlos Andrés Pérez, leader of the center-left Acción Democratíca, was elected President. He continued the nationalization trend by taking over the iron and steel industry in 1975 and the oil industry in 1976. During the following years, political power shifted away from COPEI leaders such as Luis Herrera Campíns and candidates from Acción Democrática such as Jaime Lusinchi and Andrés Pérez. Venezuela also experienced an economic crisis in the late 1980's that forced it to borrow money from the United States and other countries. Despite this short-term solution, the threats of violent political activity and corruption still loomed. In 1992, Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez attempted a military coup, but was captured and imprisoned.

Venezuela has a long history of constitutional reforms. In addition to the two constitution-making processes that occurred when Venezuela became independent in 1811 and when it emerged as a separate country from Gran Colombia in 1830, Venezuela has had many other constitution making processes which were carried out in 1858, 1863, 1893, 1901, 1914, 1946, 1953, and 1961. In general, these cases of constitution making processes were consquences of the de facto rejection of the existing constitution through a political coup d' état, a revolution, or a civil war.

However, the most recent reform, in 1999, was distinct. The impetus for it was not a coup, revolution, or civil war: rather, it was the democratic election of Hugo Chávez on December 6, 1998. Chávez had been contemplating constitutional reform since his attempted coup in 1999. One of his 1998 campaign promises was that he would organised a referendum asking the Venezuelan people if they wish to convene a National Constituent Assembly. Chávez said that his goal in leading constitutional reform was to open up political discourse to independent and third parties by changing the national political process and eliminating political corruption of the past.

This appeared as a particularly laudable goal in light of Venezuela's political environment at the time. Venezuelan political historians such as Allan R. Brewer-Carias have described Venezuelan democracy during the second half of the 20 th century as lacking true representation and participation. Political parties heavily dominated the political process. At this time, Venezuela used the d'Hondt system, a method of proportional representation based on the party system and pursuant to the 1961 constitution, for the election of party representatives. This system was applied to all national, state, and municipal elections. it was often criticized for creating a situation in which party representatives were more accountable to their parties than to the citizens of the communities that they represented. This led to political corruption. Thus, constitutional reform in order to create a more participatory system may have seemed like a necessary change in 1998 when Chávez promoted the idea. Furthermore, Venezuela's economic downturn during late 1970's and mid-1990's also aroused the call for democratic change. However, the question of how to institute such reform remained.

Chávez's election occurred under the supremacy of the 1961 Venezuelan Constitution. This fact created a serious legal question as to whether the future election of a Constituent Assembly necessitated a constitutional amendment to the 1961 constitution or whether the idea of popular sovereignty could legitimize the election of a Constituent Assembly despite the lack of such authorization in the 1961 Constitution. This question was referred to the Supreme Court. On January 19, 1999, the Supreme Court issued two decisions on the matter. The decisions recognized the possibility of calling a consultative referendum in order to gauge popular opinion regarding an election of a Constituent Assembly while presenting a summary of the constitutional doctrine of constituent power. However, the decisions did not address whether a constitutional amendment was necessary.

On February 2, 1999, Chávez issued his first decree as President ordering a consultative referendum to ask the Venezuelan people whether a constituent assembly should be convened. The referendum was held on April 25, 1999. 38.7% of eligible voters participated and the referendum received 81.9% yes votes and 18.1% no votes. With this mandate, the work of convening a constituent assembly began.

After the referendum, the work of constitution building continued through the election of the Constituent Assembly. On July 25, 1999 an election was held in order to elect 131 deputies to the Constituent Assembly. One hundred and four deputies were elected from 24 regional constituencies relating to states and federal districts. The number of seats per state or federal district was based on population. Second, 24 deputies were elected in a national constituency and each voter was allowed to choose up to ten deputies for the 24 national representatives. Third, three members were elected to represent the indigenous population. President Chávez's party, Polo Patriotico, won an overwhelming majority of the seats, 94% or 95%. Some argue that this was the result of Chávez's intense campaign work for his party's candidates in which he personally appeared in every state in Venezuela proposing his list of candidates for each constituency. Chávez backed 20 people for the 24 national deputies. and lobbiedfor a list of 10 candidates for eastern states and another 10 candidates for the western states. Ultimately, only 4 of the 24 national deputies were independent candidates opposed to President Chávez.

In August of 1999, the newly elected Constituent Assembly created a Commission of Judicial Emergency aimed at intervening in judicial matters. Furthermore, the Constituent Assembly's other immediate actions consisted of dissolving both the Senate, the Chamber of Representatives of the National Congress, the legislative Assemblies of the States, and suspending municipal elections. These actions provoked public outrage and were challenged in the Supreme Court. In October of 1999, the Supreme Court upheld the Constituent Assembly's actions by recognizing the Constituent Assembly as a "supra constitutional power". Later, the Constituent Assembly would use its "supra constitutional power" to suspend judges and replace the Court.

In September of 1999, the Constituent Assembly began the work of drafting the constitution. Various draft proposals were submitted to the Constituent Assembly. The President submitted a document that was prepared with the help of a Constitutional Council composed of independent political leaders. Additionally, a small left-wing party and a non-governmental organization named Primero Justicia submitted drafts.

The Constituent Assembly appointed 20 commissions to determine the standard issues that must be addressed in any constitution and by the end of September; the 20 commissions had sent their drafts to the Constitutional Commission that was in charge of integrating the various commissions' drafts. The Board of Directors of the Constituent Assembly gave the Constitutional Commission only two weeks to integrate almost 800 articles. This short time frame left little room for public discussion and civil society participation. The Constituent Assembly worked to create a coherent and integrated draft of the Constitution in order to submit the Constitution to a referendum by December 1999.

On December 15, 1999, 44.3% of eligible voters casted their vote for the new Constitution and 71.8% of voters approved it. The National Election Council audited the vote. The new constitution therefore replaced the 1961 Constitution, becoming Venezuela's 26 th Constitution and the first constitution in the history of Venezuela to be approved by popular referendum. The 1999 Venezuelan Constitution had 350 articles, making it one of the longest, most complicated, and most comprehensive constitutions in the world.

The 1999 Constitution made several changes to the prior constitution. It officially changed the name of the country from the Republic of Venezuela to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Many of the changes made related to the structure of government. The 1999 Constitution converted Venezuela's three-branch system of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) to a five-branch system. These five branches are the executive branch which consists of the president, the legislative branch, which consists of the National Assembly, the judicial branch, which consists of the courts, the electoral branch, which consists of the National Electoral Council, and the citizen's branch, which is composed of the Defender of the People, Chief Public Prosecutor, and the Comptroller General, who are responsible for defending citizensstate. The new Constitution also changed the legislative branch from bicameral to unicameral.

Other changes were related to the rights of the Venezuelan people. The 1999 Constitution incorporated the idea of popular sovereignty (such as frequent referendums), social responsibilities, the right to rebel against injustice, and the eternal independence of the republic from foreign domination. Further, it enshrined certain human rights such as free education up to the tertiary level, free health care, access to a clean environment, and the rights for minorities (including indigenous people), to uphold their own cultures, religions, and languages.

in addition, the Constitution reformed the presidency, making Venezuela's presidency stronger than that of most Latin American countries. The 1999 constitution increased the presidential term from five to six years, with each president being entitled to a maximum of two terms. It gave the president the power to dissolve the National Assembly under certain conditions. The Constitution also established a presidential recall referendum in which the people were given the right to remove the president from office before the expiration of the presidential term. Such referenda were automatically were called upon provision of petitions with a valid number of signatures. This new provision was activated for the first time when such a referendum was held in 2004. However, the referendum failed to receive majority support. Constitutional reform in 2009 further strengthened the presidency in Venezuela as 54% of Venezuelan voters backed a constitutional amendment that abolished term limits for elected officials, including the President.

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Constitutional history Christopher Columbus first sighted the coast of Venezuela in 1498. About two decades later, the Spanish began to settle in the country. At the time of the settlement, there were

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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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. In 1876, Porfirio Díaz leads a military takeover of Mexico City and assumes the presidency.

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The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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Mexico and Central America, 1800–1900 A.D. | Chronology | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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“Following the Mexican declaration of war in 1810, protracted fighting erupts cross the country until Independence is won in 1821. War leaves Mexico in a state of disorder and deterioration; slowly the Mexicans begin building their social and political infrastructure to make way for republican gover…

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Latin American Revolutions: Crash Course World History #31

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During the 1800s Mexico won its independence from Spain and endured four invasions from four foreign powers, France, United States, and Spain, and Great Britain

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Latin American Revolutions: Crash Course World History #31

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Venezuela effectively achieved its independence from Spain by 1819 as part of the Republic of Colombia. After Venezuela separated from Colombia in 1830, the United States recognized and established diplomatic relations with Venezuela in 1835.