Angelo Schiavio - footballer
Scored goal that won Italy's first World Cup
Angelo Schiavio, the hero of the Italian football team’s first World Cup victory in 1934, was born on this day in 1905 in Bologna. The centre forward, a prolific goalscorer for his home-town club in Serie A, scored the winning goal in the final against Czechoslovakia to hand victory to the Azzurri in the 16-team tournament, of which the Italians were hosts. In the final at the Stadio Flaminio in Rome, the Azzurri had gone behind to a goal by the Czech winger Antonin Puc with 19 minutes remaining, but equalised 10 minutes later through Raimundo Orsi, the Argentina-born forward from Juventus, taking the match into extra time. Schiavio struck the decisive goal, driven home with his right foot from a pass by Enrique Guaita, another Argentine – one of 12 to represent Italy and Argentina in the days before playing for more than one nation was outlawed. Read more…
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Stefano D’Arrigo – writer
Author’s greatest work took him 17 years to complete
The Sicilian poet, writer, and art critic Stefano D’Arrigo, who once made a small appearance in a Pier Paolo Pasolini film, was born Fortunato Stefano D’Arrigo on this day in 1919 in Alì Terme, a comune - municipality - of Messina. He became famous for his novel, Horcynus Orca (Killer Whale) which was published in 1975 and was considered a masterpiece of 20th century Italian literature. The action in the book takes place in the aftermath of World War II and follows the journey of a Sicilian fisherman as he returns home to his village after serving in the Italian Navy during the war. The reader experiences the fisherman’s encounters with the transformed landscape and people and sees through his eyes the impact of war on the traditional ways of life in Sicily. Stefano D’Arrigo left Alì Terme after completing elementary school when he was ten years old. Read more…
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Giovanni Migliara – painter
19th century artist captured many beautiful views for posterity
Giovanni Migliara, who rose from working as a theatre set designer to becoming court painter to King Charles Albert of Sardinia, was born on this day in 1785 in Alessandria in Piedmont. He was first apprenticed to the sculptor Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo, but then went on to study at the Brera Academy.in Milan with Giocondo Albertolli. He began working as a set designer with Teatro Carcano in Milan in 1804 and then moved to La Scala in 1805, where he served under the direction of Alessandro Sanquirico until 1809. His theatre work enabled him to acquire skills as a landscape artist and a creator of perspective. Migliara had to stop working while he was suffering from a serious lung problem but from about 1810 he started painting miniatures and then moved on to watercolours and then oils on canvas, silk and ivory, drawing inspiration from Venetian painters. Read more…
Gibbon's moment of inspiration
Walk around the Forum sparked idea for epic work
The English writer and historian Edward Gibbon claimed that the inspiration to write the book that - unbeknown to him - would grant him literary immortality came to him while exploring the ruins of the Forum in Rome on this day in 1764. Gibbon, who had enjoyed modest success with his first book, entitled Essay on the Study of Literature, was in Rome after deciding to embark on the Grand Tour, taking in the Italian cities of Florence, Naples and Venice as well as the capital. Later, in his memoirs, Gibbon wrote that: "It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind." In the event, the book expanded to cover more than the city of Rome. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ran to six volumes and as many as 5,000 pages. Read more…
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Virgil – Roman poet
Writer’s epic poem commemorates achievements and ideals of Rome
Regarded as the greatest of the Roman poets, Virgil, or Publius Vergilius Maro as he was originally named, was born on this day in 70 BC in the village of Andes near Mantua, in what is now Lombardy. Virgil is famous for his work, The Aeneid, which told the story of Rome’s founder and the Roman mission to civilise the world under divine guidance. It is widely considered one of the most important poems in the history of Western literature. Experts have high regard for Virgil’s poetry, not only for the music and diction of his verse and for his skill in constructing an intricate work on a grand scale, but also because of what it reveals about Roman life and behaviour. Virgil was born of peasant stock and his love of the Italian countryside and the people who worked in it is well reflected in his poetry. He was educated in Cremona, Milan and Rome. Read more…
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Roberto Vittori – astronaut
High-flying Colonel contributed to space research
Roberto Vittori, the last non-American to fly on board the US Space Shuttle, was born on this day in 1964 in Viterbo. An Italian air force officer, Vittori was selected by the European Space Agency to be part of their Astronaut Corps and has participated in three space flights. In 2011 Vittori was on board the Space Shuttle that travelled to the International Space Station to install the AMS-02 cosmic ray detector to examine dark matter and the origin of the Universe. Vittori is one of five Italians to have visited the International Space Station. The others are Umberto Guidoni, who was the first European to set foot on board, Paolo Nespoli, at 61 (at the time of writing) the European Space Agency’s oldest active astronaut, Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space. Nespoli participated in three International Space Station missions. Read more…
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Book of the Day: The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup, by Jonathan Wilson
THE 2026 CHARLES TYRWHITT SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR
Jonathan Wilson is the editor of The Blizzard and a freelance writer for the Guardian, World Soccer and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of 11 books, including Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe, Angels with Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina, The Barcelona Legacy and The Names Heard Long Ago.
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