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Syracuse, Sicily
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Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture and this 2, 700-year-old city played a key role in ancient times, when it was one of the major powers of the Mediterranean world. Syracuse is located in the southeast corner of the island of Sicily, the city was founded by Ancient Greek Corinthians and Teneans and became a very powerful city-state. Syracuse was allied with Sparta and Corinth and exerted influence over the entirety of Magna Graecia, described by Cicero as the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all, it equaled Athens in size during the fifth century BC. It later became part of the Roman Republic and Byzantine Empire, after this Palermo overtook it in importance, as the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily. Eventually the kingdom would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860, in the modern day, the city is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site along with the Necropolis of Pantalica. In the central area, the city itself has a population of around 125,000 people, the inhabitants are known as Siracusans. Syracuse is mentioned in the Bible in the Acts of the Apostles book at 28,12 as Paul stayed there, the patron saint of the city is Saint Lucy, she was born in Syracuse and her feast day, Saint Lucys Day, is celebrated on 13 December. Syracuse was founded in 734 or 733 BC by Greek settlers from Corinth and Tenea, there are many attested variants of the name of the city including Συράκουσαι Syrakousai, Συράκοσαι Syrakosai and Συρακώ Syrako. The nucleus of the ancient city was the island of Ortygia. The settlers found the fertile and the native tribes to be reasonably well-disposed to their presence. The city grew and prospered, and for some time stood as the most powerful Greek city anywhere in the Mediterranean, colonies were founded at Akrai, Kasmenai, Akrillai, Helorus and Kamarina. The descendants of the first colonists, called Gamoroi, held power until they were expelled by the Killichiroi, the former, however, returned to power in 485 BC, thanks to the help of Gelo, ruler of Gela. Gelo himself became the despot of the city, and moved many inhabitants of Gela, Kamarina and Megera to Syracuse, building the new quarters of Tyche, the enlarged power of Syracuse made unavoidable the clash against the Carthaginians, who ruled western Sicily. In the Battle of Himera, Gelo, who had allied with Theron of Agrigento, a temple dedicated to Athena, was erected in the city to commemorate the event. Syracuse grew considerably during this time and its walls encircled 120 hectares in the fifth century, but as early as the 470s BC the inhabitants started building outside the walls. The complete population of its territory approximately numbered 250,000 in 415 BC, Gelo was succeeded by his brother Hiero, who fought against the Etruscans at Cumae in 474 BC. His rule was eulogized by poets like Simonides of Ceos, Bacchylides and Pindar, a democratic regime was introduced by Thrasybulos
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Italians
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Italians are a nation and ethnic group native to Italy who share a common culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a native tongue. The majority of Italian nationals are speakers of Standard Italian. Italians have greatly influenced and contributed to the arts and music, science, technology, cuisine, sports, fashion, jurisprudence, banking, Italian people are generally known for their localism and their attention to clothing and family values. The term Italian is at least 3,000 years old and has a history that goes back to pre-Roman Italy. According to one of the common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The Etruscan civilization reached its peak about the 7th century BC, but by 509 BC, when the Romans overthrew their Etruscan monarchs, its control in Italy was on the wane. By 350 BC, after a series of wars between Greeks and Etruscans, the Latins, with Rome as their capital, gained the ascendancy by 272 BC, and they managed to unite the entire Italian peninsula. This period of unification was followed by one of conquest in the Mediterranean, in the course of the century-long struggle against Carthage, the Romans conquered Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Finally, in 146 BC, at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, with Carthage completely destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved, octavian, the final victor, was accorded the title of Augustus by the Senate and thereby became the first Roman emperor. After two centuries of rule, in the 3rd century AD, Rome was threatened by internal discord and menaced by Germanic and Asian invaders. Emperor Diocletians administrative division of the empire into two parts in 285 provided only temporary relief, it became permanent in 395, in 313, Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity, and churches thereafter rose throughout the empire. However, he moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople. The last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 by a Germanic foederati general in Italy and his defeat marked the end of the western part of the Roman Empire. During most of the period from the fall of Rome until the Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861, Odoacer ruled well for 13 years after gaining control of Italy in 476. Then he was attacked and defeated by Theodoric, the king of another Germanic tribe, Theodoric and Odoacer ruled jointly until 493, when Theodoric murdered Odoacer. Theodoric continued to rule Italy with an army of Ostrogoths and a government that was mostly Italian, after the death of Theodoric in 526, the kingdom began to grow weak
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Democratic Party (Italy)
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The Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in Italy. The partys acting leader is Matteo Orfini, who replaced Matteo Renzi after his resignation in February 2017, in April–May the party will hold a leadership election and Renzi is again running for secretary. The PD was founded on 14 October 2007 upon the merger of various centre-left parties which had part of The Olive Tree list. The PDs main ideological trends are thus social democracy and the Italian Christian leftist tradition, the party has been also influenced by social liberalism, which was already present in some of the founding components of the DS and DL, and more generally by a Third Way progressivism. Following the 2013 general election and the 2014 European Parliament election, the PD was the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and the European Parliament. From 2013 the Italian government has been led by three successive Democratic Prime Ministers, Enrico Letta, Matteo Renzi, and Paolo Gentiloni. As of 2017, other than the government, Democrats head fourteen regional governments out of twenty and function as coalition partner in Tuscany. Former bigwigs include Giorgio Napolitano, Sergio Mattarella, Romano Prodi, Giuliano Amato, Massimo DAlema, Pier Luigi Bersani, Francesco Rutelli, the coalition, in alliance with the Communist Refoundation Party, won the 1996 general election and Prodi became Prime Minister. In February 1998 the PDS merged with minor parties to become the Democrats of the Left, while in March 2002 the PPI, RI. In the summer of 2003 Prodi suggested that the forces would participate in the 2004 European Parliament election with a common list. Whereas the Union of Democrats for Europe and the far-left parties refused, four parties accepted, the DS, DL, the Italian Democratic Socialists and the European Republicans Movement. They launched a joint list named United in the Olive Tree, the project was later abandoned in 2005 by the SDI. In the 2006 general election the list obtained 31. 3% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies, eight parties agreed to merge into the PD, Democrats of the Left Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy. Southern Democratic Party, Sardinia Project, European Republicans Movement, Democratic Republicans, Middle Italy, while the DL agreed to the merger with virtually no resistance, the DS experienced a more heated final congress. On 19 April 2007 approximately 75% of party members voted in support of the merger of the DS into the PD, the left-wing opposition, led by Fabio Mussi, obtained just 15% of the support within the party. A third motion, presented by Gavino Angius and supportive of the PD only within the Party of European Socialists, during and following the congress, both Mussi and Angius announced their intention not to join the PD and founded a new party called Democratic Left. On 22 May 2007 the composition of the committee of the nascent party was announced. On 18 June the committee met to decide the rules for the election of the 2,400 members of the partys constituent assembly
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Harvard University
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Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
5.
Angelino Alfano
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Angelino Alfano is an Italian politician who has served in the government of Italy as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 12 December 2016. He was the first and only secretary of the centre-right party The People of Freedom from 2011 to 2013, in November 2013 he became leader of the New Centre-Right party which is a split from the PdL. Alfano is the first Italian politician to held the office of Minister of Justice, Interior and Foreign Affairs, in 1996, Alfano was the youngest member elected to the Sicilian Regional Assembly. In 2001, he became a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, from 2005 to 2008 he also held the position of regional coordinator in Sicily of the Forza Italia party. After the 2008 elections victory by the Berlusconi-led centre-right coalition, Alfano was again elected to Parliament, in May 2008, aged 37, he became the youngest Minister of Justice in the history of the Italian Republic. The so-called Lodo Alfano, named him, was a piece of legislation in force between 2008 and 2009 that granted immunity from prosecution to the four highest political offices in Italy. It was widely criticised as a copy of the Lodo Schifani, declared unconstitutional in 2004, the Lodo Alfano was declared unconstitutional by the Italian Constitutional Court in October 2009. On 1 June 2011 Angelino Alfano was appointed Political Secretary of the People of Freedom by party President Silvio Berlusconi in order to reorganise and he was later elected to that post by the July 1 meeting of the partys National Council. The government became the first in the history of the Italian Republic to include representatives of all the major candidate-coalitions that had competed in the election, Alfano, as Secretary of the PdL, became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. After the vote Alfano was confirmed as minister, all five PdL ministers, three under-secretaries,30 senators and 27 deputies immediately joined a new party called New Centre-Right. Most were Christian democrats and many came from the regions of Calabria. On 13 February 2014, following tensions with his rival and new Secretary of the Democratic Party, Matteo Renzi. On 22 February Renzi was sworn in as Prime Minister and Alfano was confirmed as Interior Minister, a major problem Alfano has faced, as Interior Minister, is illegal immigration to Italy, which emerged as a result of the Libyan and Syrian Civil Wars. On 8 August 2014, the Italian Cabinet approved a law-decree contrasting the phenomenon of lawlessness and violence at sporting events, in November 2014, the Italian-run rescue option Operation Mare Nostrum was replaced by Frontexs Operation Triton, due to the refusal by several EU governments to fund it. On 19 April 2015, a huge shipwreck took place in the Mediterranean Sea, in November 2015 six Sicilian Mafia bosses, close to Totò Riina, were arrested for allegedly planning the assassination of Alfano. In a phone-tapped conversations the gang said they wanted Alfano to meet the fate as John F. Kennedy. On 7 December 2016, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced his resignation, a few days later, on 11 December 2016, the Foreign Affairs Minister Paolo Gentiloni was asked by President Mattarella to form a new government. On the following day Gentiloni was officially sworn in as the new head of the government, angelini Alfano was appointed, by the new Prime Minister and by President Mattarella, new Minister of Foreign Affairs, succeeding Gentiloni
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Dario Franceschini
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Dario Franceschini is an Italian lawyer, writer, and politician, who served as the second leader of the Democratic Party. He was a prominent member of the Italian Peoples Party, of the Daisy, following the resignation of Walter Veltroni on 21 February 2009 the Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Party elected him the new Secretary. On 25 October 2009, he lost the election to Pier Luigi Bersani. He was Minister for Relations with Parliament from 2013 to 2014, Franceschini, who is considered a centrist and a Christian leftist, is the leader of AreaDem, which is the majority faction in the Democratic Party. Franceschini was born in Ferrara in 1958 and his father George was a Catholic partisan and MP for the Christian Democrats in the Second Legislature, from 1953 to 1958. He graduated in law at the University of Ferrara, with a thesis on the history of doctrines and political institutions, published as a book The Popular Party in Ferrara. Catholics, Socialists and fascists in the land of Grosoli and Don Minzoni and on the subject he participated in conferences. From 1985 to 1989 he edited for Formez the bimonthly review of regional legislative documentation and he was president of the Palio di Ferrara. He is an citizen of the City of Borgo Velino. On March 8,2014, during a visit to Palmanova, the official bulletin of the hospital will report later that the minister was suffering from an acute coronary syndrome treated positively and promptly. He was then transferred to the hospital Santa Maria della Misericordia of Udine and he was released March 16,2014. He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2016, Franceschini is divorced from his first wife, Silvia Bombardi. He married Michela Di Biase in 2014 in Sutri, the ASD is present in almost all high schools in the city in the early elections scheduled by decrees. From 1974 to 1977 he was elected to the student organisations. Later, he was elected student representative to the board of directors of the University of Ferrara and he founded the Cultural Cooperative Christmas Gorini, which is concerned with art cinema. The charismatic figures that since his youth aroused his attention are, among others, Benigno Zaccagnini, in particular, Don Mazzolari is repeatedly pointed out to during his campaign to be the secretary of the Democratic Party. In 1980 he became councillor of Ferrara in 1983 and party whip of the council, the following year, he enters the national leadership of the DC youth movement, for which he founded and directed the magazine New Policy. He does not accept the decision of the party to stand independently - as a coalition of center - in the election of 1994
