.jpg)
NEW - Giuseppe Cesare Abba – writer and soldier
.jpg)
Patriotic revolutionary took notes during historic expedition with Garibaldi
Giuseppe Cesare Abba, an Italian writer who volunteered to fight alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi during his campaign to unify Italy, was born on this day in 1836 in Cairo Montenotte in Liguria, which was then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Abba took part in most of the battles that led to the dissolution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and he made notes during the 1860 campaign. His major work, Noterelle d’Uno dei Mille was published in 1880, thanks to a recommendation by Giosuè Carducci, the Italian writer and poet who won a Nobel prize in Literature. While attending a college in Liguria, Abba became enthusiastic about the work of patriotic romantic poets and writers such as Ugo Foscolo, Giovanni Prati, and Aleardo Aleardi. He went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa, but left in 1859 to voluntarily enrol in a cavalry regiment in Pinerolo. Read more…
______________________________________
The October Martyrs of Lanciano
Heroic group of partisans earned Gold Medal for Valour
The town of Lanciano in Abruzzo today and every October 6 remembers the 23 citizens killed by German troops on this day in 1943 after one of the most celebrated revolts of World War Two against the occupying Nazi forces. The group became known as the Martiri ottobrini di Lanciano - the October Martyrs of Lanciano. Their deeds were recognised by the postwar Italian government with the award - to all the citizens of the town - of the Gold Medal for Military Valour, and there are a number of monuments in the town that commemorate the event and the participants. As well as 11 partisan resistance fighters, another 12 Lancianese who fought alongside them were killed by the Germans. The leader of the partigiani group, a 28-year-old former soldier named Trentino La Barba, was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal for Valour in his own right. Read more…
______________________________________
Maria Bertilla Boscardin – wartime nurse
Brave nun was prepared to die caring for others
Maria Bertilla Boscardin, a nun who was canonised for her devoted nursing of sick children and air raid victims in the First World War, was born on this day in 1888 in Brendola, a small town in the Veneto. She was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1952, just 30 years after she died, and made a saint by Pope John XXIII nine years later. It was one of the quicker canonisations of modern history. Sometimes many decades or even hundreds of years pass before a person’s life is recognised with sainthood. Boscardin’s came so swiftly that relatives and some of the patients she cared for were present at her canonisation ceremony. Indeed, her father, Angelo, was asked to provide testimony during the beatification process. Born into a peasant family, who knew her as Annette, her life in Brendola, which is about 15km (9 miles) southwest of Vicenza, was tough. Read more…
Ottavio Bianchi - football coach
The northerner who steered Napoli to first scudetto
Ottavio Bianchi, the coach who guided Napoli to their first Serie A title in the Italian football championship, was born on this day in 1943 in the northern Italian city of Brescia. Napoli, who had been runners-up four times in Italy's elite league, broke their duck by winning the scudetto in the 1986-87 season, when Bianchi built his side around the forward line consisting initially of the World Cup-winning Argentina star Diego Maradona, the Italy strikers Bruno Giordano and Andrea Carnevale. After the arrival of the Brazilian forward Careca to partner Maradona and Giordano, the trio became collectively known as MaGiCa. Bianchi’s team began the 1986-87 season with a 13-match unbeaten run. It came to an end with an away defeat against Fiorentina but Napoli lost only two more matches all season, winning the title by three points from Juventus. Read more…
______________________________________
.jpg)
Bruno Sammartino - wrestling champion
.jpg)
How a sickly kid from Abruzzo became king of the ring
Bruno Sammartino, who found fame as a professional wrestler in the United States, was born on this day in 1935 in Pizzoferrato, a village in the province of Chieti in the Abruzzo region. He died in 2018 at the age of 82, having spent the last years of his life in Ross Township in Pennsylvania, about six miles north of the city of Pittsburgh. Sammartino held the title of world heavyweight champion under the banner of the World Wide Wrestling Federation - now known as World Wrestling Entertainment - for more than 11 years in two reigns. The first of those, spanning seven years, eight months and one day, is the longest any individual has held the title continuously since it was first contested in 1963. At his peak in the ring, Sammartino weighed in at 265lbs (120kg), yet it was something of a miracle that he survived his childhood. Read more…
_____________________________________
Book of the Day: Garibaldi and the Thousand, May 1860 (Garibaldi Trilogy Book 2), by George Macaulay Trevelyan
GM Trevelyan was an English historian whose work, written for the general reader as much as for the history student. The third son of Sir George Otto Trevelyan, he was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became Regius Professor of modern history at Cambridge in 1927 and master of Trinity College in 1940, retiring in 1951.
No comments:
Post a Comment