From the referendum that abolished the monarchy and the Constitution of 1948 through NATO and the founding of the European Community, the economic miracle, the Years of Lead and the murder of Aldo Moro, the Clean Hands scandal and the fall of the First Republic, the age of Berlusconi and the euro, to the pandemic and the governments of today. Slide across the years to read the major events of republican Italy.
In a referendum held with the first vote ever cast by Italian women, the people abolish the monarchy and proclaim a republic, sending the House of Savoy into exile.
From the referendum that abolished the monarchy and the Constitution of 1948 through NATO and the founding of the European Community, the economic miracle, the Years of Lead and the murder of Aldo Moro, the Clean Hands scandal and the fall of the First Republic, the age of Berlusconi and the euro, to the pandemic and the governments of today. Slide across the years to read the major events of republican Italy.
In a referendum held with the first vote ever cast by Italian women, the people abolish the monarchy and proclaim a republic, sending the House of Savoy into exile.
A new democratic constitution takes effect, and in a Cold War election the Christian Democrats decisively defeat the Communist-led left.
A founding member of the Atlantic Alliance, Italy ties its security and its political identity to the United States and the Western bloc.
Italy hosts the signing of the treaty that creates the European Economic Community, becoming a founding member of the project of European unity.
A spectacular postwar boom transforms Italy from an agrarian society into an industrial power, remaking daily life with cars, appliances, and mass migration north.
Mass strikes and a deadly bombing in Milan open the 'Years of Lead', a decade of political terrorism from both extremes that scars the republic.
The Red Brigades kidnap and kill former prime minister Aldo Moro, architect of an opening to the Communists, in the gravest crisis of the republic's terrorist decade.
The Mani Pulite corruption inquiry destroys the old governing parties, while the mafia murders of judges Falcone and Borsellino shake the state to its core.
Media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi sweeps into power months after founding a party, dominating two decades of a new, bipolar Italian politics.
The lira gives way to the euro as Italy joins the European single currency, binding its economy ever more tightly to the European Union.
Italy becomes the first Western country devastated by COVID-19, imposing a sweeping national lockdown as its hospitals are overwhelmed.
Giorgia Meloni leads a right-wing coalition to victory and becomes the first woman to head an Italian government, at the head of a party with post-Fascist roots.