In Depth

Not-So-Fun Facts: So You Think You've Got Bad Luck?

Aside from the fact that Shakespeare set his Much Ado About Nothing in Messina, it has rarely been blessed. Get a load of these disasters.

The Black Death, or bubonic plague, swept over Messina in 1743, killing more than 40,000 people. Forty years later, an earthquake leveled the city. Angered by Sicilian demands for independence, the Bourbon ruler Ferdinand II bombarded Messina to a pulp in 1848. Still reeling from the blows, the city was swept by a cholera epidemic in 1854. It staggered back to its feet by 1894, in time for another devastating earthquake. Messina had barely recovered when, on December 28, 1908, tremors shot through the city once again. Before the day was over, some 85,000 residents were dead. The earthquake was so violent that the coast sank 20 inches into the sea.

Under the dictatorship of Mussolini, the city was rebuilt and stood proudly once again. But in 1943, with Italy at war with Britain and the United States, Allied bombers were determined to knock out Messina and take Sicily as a prelude to the invasion of southern Italy. Bombs rained from the sky like raindrops falling on a roof; Messina was flattened once again.