The key dates in Sicily’s extraordinary history

The drama of Sicily’s history – frequently fabulously prosperous, sometimes desperately poor, devastated by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, overrun by Ancient Greeks, invaded by Romans, Byzantines, Moors and Normans, then shuffled between powerful powerful European dynastic interests: Swabian, Angevin, Aragonese, Savoyard, Bourbon – risks overshadowing appreciation of the peace, prosperity and material comfort that have also been part of its story.  It is the continuation of this latter now which makes it such a great destination to visit.

But in its past as a key strategic military and trading post in the centre of the Mediterranean, it has attracted immigrants, conquerors and chancers for 3,000 years:

748 BC First Greek colony founded at Naxos (taking its name from the island of the colonists’ origin) on Sicily’s east coast.

413 BC Sicily with its Corinthian (allied to Sparta) and Athenian Greek colonies is involved in the Second Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.  It ends disastrously for Athens with 7,000 Athenians captured and held in the latomy (deep stone quarry) of Syracuse, where they either starve or are sold into slavery.

212 BC The Romans capture Syracuse in their Second Punic war with Carthage.  The Greek Archimedes, whose inventions have aided the defence of the city, is executed by mistake.  The island becomes a prosperous and peaceful Roman province, which it remains for 600 years.

361 AD Major earthquake centred on the Strait of Messina.

486 Barbarian Vandals under Gaiseric invade following the fall of Rome 10 years earlier.

535 Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire unconquered by barbarians, reconquers Sicily.  Although stable, the island economy stagnates having lost the enormous market of Roman empire Italy on its doorstep.

827 First landing of the Moors, Muslims from North Africa; they subsequently occupy and colonise the whole of Sicily.

1060 Norman knight adventurers led by Roger de Hauteville land in Sicily, invited by a Moorish sultan to support him in a local dispute.  They gain total control of the island by 1091.

1169 A major earthquake kills around 15,000.

1198-1250 Rule of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Stupor Mundi – the wonder of the world – as king of Sicily.  He is, on his mother’s side, descended from the Norman de Hautevilles.  He also becomes Holy Roman Emperor of the Germanic empire north of the Alps, but never succeeds in uniting his two territories.  His efforts fuel lasting enmity with the Papal States of Central Italy, which lies between the two.  Papal displeasure is marked by excommunication four times.

1268 Frederick II’s grandson, Conradin, beheaded at the age of 16 in Naples on the orders of Charles of Anjou, summoned to Italy to defend the Papacy.  Charles thus becomes king of Sicily.

1282 The Sicilian Vespers, a spontaneous uprising against the unpopular French Angevins, results in the (French) Anjou king being replaced by the (Spanish) Peter of Aragon.

1669 A major eruption of Etna sends lava flows around Catania destroying the countryside but there is little damage inside the protecting city walls.

1693 Enormous damage from an earthquake in southeast Sicily. Ancient Noto, a town of 15,000 with 53 churches is totally destroyed, the current Noto is a completely new early 18th-century town about five miles from the original site.

1713 The Treaty of Utrecht ends the European Wars of the Spanish Succession, Sicily finds itself under the (French) Bourbons in Naples, Naples and Sicily being united in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

1860 Garibaldi’s “Expedition of the Thousand” lands in Marsala (W Sicily), the Bourbons are defeated and in a plebiscite the Two Sicilies vote to join the Kingdom of Piedmont, which becomes in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy.

1895-1905 Mass emigration (half the population, mainly to the United States) following decades of poverty and neglect.

1908 Messina earthquake.  Estimates of up to 200,000 killed.  Messina itself almost entirely destroyed.

1943 Allied landings on Sicily, Nazi and Fascist troops defeated.

1955 Foreign ministers of the six member states of the European Coal and Steel Community meet at the Messina Conference. The agreement they sign is one of the federalist accords that will lead to the formation of the EEC, the precursor to the EU.

1992 Anti-mafia magistrates Falcone and Borsellino are murdered in separate car bomb attacks in Palermo.  Their “maxi trial” of mobsters in 1986-87 was a major blow against the mafia. 

2025 Agrigento European Capital of Culture.


Comments

One response to “The key dates in Sicily’s extraordinary history”

  1. Rebecca Ellertson avatar
    Rebecca Ellertson

    Very complete and written well. A good first reference from which to delve deeper into this fascinating island culture of Sicilia.

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