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Dateline
65 Million Years Ago According to a popular theory based on evidence found at Gubbio, an asteroid strikes Earth, causing a chain reaction that drives the dinosaurs to extinction. The age of mammals begins.
1200 B.C. Umbri tribes start settling in northern Umbria.
1000-500 B.C. Villanovian culture thrives.
800-500 B.C. The Etruscans are a major power in central Italy.
600-510 B.C. The Etruscan Tarquin dynasty rules as kings of Rome.
506 B.C. Lars Porsena, Etruscan king of Chiusi, attacks young Roman Republic and wins.
295-265 B.C. Rome conquers Etruria and allies with Umbria. The Roman Empire spreads throughout central Italy and Latinizes local culture.
59 B.C. Julius Caesar founds Fiorentia, and Florence is born.
56 B.C. The First Triumvirate (Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus) meets in Lucca.
ca. 4 B.C. Jesus is born in Nazareth. Renaissance painters flock there to set up easels.
A.D. 313 Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, a convert himself, declares religious freedom for Christians.
476 After a long decline, the Roman Empire falls.
570-774 The Lombard duchies rule over much of Tuscany and Umbria.
774-800s Charlemagne picks up where the Lombards left off.
951 The German emperors and the pope begin to quarrel.
1125 Florence razes neighbor Fiesole to the ground. Florentine expansion begins.
1155 Frederick Barbarossa is crowned emperor of Europe and attempts to take control of part of Italy.
1173 Pisa begins its bell tower. Eleven years later, someone notices the tilt.
1215 Florentine families take sides in the conflict between the emperor (Guelf) and the pope (Ghibelline). Tuscany follows suit.
1250-1600 The Humanist era, when intellectual pursuit of knowledge and study of the classical and Arab worlds take precedence over blind Christian doctrine and superstition and lift Europe out of its medieval stupor.
1284 Genoa trounces Pisa's fleet in the naval Battle of Meloria. A long Pisan decline begins.
1290s Giotto frescoes the Life of St. Francis in Assisi. Painting will never be the same.
1300 The Guelfs finally win in Florence and immediately split into the White and the Black factions.
1301 Florence conquers Pistoia.
1302 Dante is exiled from Florence on trumped-up charges. He never returns.
1303-77 The pope moves from Rome to Avignon. Ambassador St. Catherine of Siena is instrumental in returning the papacy to Italy.
1308-21 Dante writes the Divine Comedy, which sets the Tuscan dialect as the predecessor of modern Italian.
1310 Siena runs its first Palio race on record.
1348 The Black Death rips through Italy, killing more than half the population. Siena loses more than two-thirds of its citizens.
1361 Florence conquers Volterra.
1378-1417 The Great Western Schism. Avignon, Rome, and Pisa each appoint a pope and the competing pontiffs busy themselves excommunicating one another.
1384 Florence conquers Arezzo.
1401 Lorenzo Ghiberti wins the competition to cast the baptistery doors in Florence. May the Renaissance begin!
1406 Florence conquers Pisa.
1434-64 Cosimo il Vecchio consolidates the Medici power over Florence.
1439 The Council of Florence takes place, whereby Eastern and Western churches briefly reconcile their ancient differences.
1469-92 The rule of Lorenzo de' Medici the Magnificent in Florence. The arts flourish under his patronage.
1475 Michelangelo Buonarroti is born in Caprese, near Arezzo.
1494 Puritanical Fra' Girolamo Savonarola helps drive the Medici from Florence and takes control of the city.
1495 The Bonfire of the Vanities. At Savonarola's urging, Florentines carry material goods seen as decadent, including paintings by Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and others, to Piazza della Signoria and set them on fire.
1498 At the pope's urging, Florentines carry Savonarola to Piazza della Signoria and set him on fire.
1498-1512 The Florentine Republic is free from the Medici.
1501-04 Michelangelo carves David.
1505 For a few months, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael all live and work in Florence at the same time.
1527 Charles V sacks Rome. Medici Pope Clement VII escapes to Orvieto, where by papal bull he refuses to annul Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon (foundation of the Anglican Church).
1530 The Medici firmly takes back power in Florence.
1550 Vasari publishes The Lives of the Artists, the first art history book.
1555-57 Florence conquers Siena.
1569 Cosimo I de' Medici becomes the grand duke of Tuscany.
1581 The Uffizi opens as a painting gallery.
1633 The Inquisition forces Galileo to recant his theory that Earth revolves around the sun.
1737 Gian Gastone, last of the Medici grand dukes, dies.
1796-1806 Napoleon sweeps through Italy several times, eventually declaring himself king of Italy.
1806 Napoleon gives Lucca to his sister Elisa as a duchy.
1814-15 Napoleon is exiled to Elba, which he rules as governor.
1824 Lorraine Grand Duke Leopold II starts draining Maremma. The reclamation is finished in 1950 with the defeat of malaria.
1848-60 The Risorgimento intellectual movement considers a unified Italy.
1860 Tuscany joins the new Kingdom of Italy.
1865-70 Florence serves as Italy's capital.
1922 Mussolini becomes the Fascist dictator of Italy.
1940-45 World War II. Fascist Italy participates as an Axis power.
1944 Nazi troops withdraw from Florence, blowing up the Arno bridges. At Hitler's direct order, the Ponte Vecchio is spared.
1946 Italy becomes a republic.
1946-97 Italy averages a new national government every 9 months (though until 1993, usually merely different arrangements of Christian Democrat Party).
1948 Italy's regions are created. Tuscany and Umbria finally get an official dividing line between them.
1966 The Arno flood in Florence. Up to 6m (20 ft.) of water and mud destroys or damages countless works of art and literature.
1985 Italy's worst winter on record; the frost hits grapevines heavily and comes close to destroying all the olive trees in Tuscany.
1988 Pedestrian zones go into effect in major cities, making historic centers traffic-free (almost).
1993 On May 27, a car bomb rips through the west wing of the Uffizi, killing five people and damaging many paintings. Italy's Christian Democratic government, in power since the end of World War II, dissolves in a flurry of scandal. In a chain reaction, far left and right also splinter; more than 16 major parties vie for power in various improbable coalitions.
1996 Italy's national government falters again, and Parliament is disbanded. The center-left Olive Tree coalition takes the lion's share of power, with Romano Prodi as prime minister.
1997 In Assisi, a series of earthquakes hit the region, and part of the basilica's ceiling collapses, destroying frescoes and damaging Giotto's Life of St. Francis.
1998 After an unusually long reign, Prodi's coalition dissolves and a new center-left alliance led by Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema eases into power.
1999 All Tuscany rejoices when local filmmaker Roberto Benigni, after a victory at Cannes, gathers three Oscars for his Holocaust fable La Vita è Bella (Life Is Beautiful).
2001 The first cases of BSE (mad cow disease) in Italy are confirmed. Beef consumption plummets over 70%, and the government considers banning such culinary institutions as the famed bistecca alla fiorentina. The year ends on a high note as, after more than a decade of desperate measures to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from tilting to the point of collapse, the work pays off and the tower reopens to the public. Don't worry -- it still leans.
2002 On January 2, Italy, along with most of western Europe, adopts the euro as its currency. On January 2, prices skyrocket.
2003 Prime Minster Berlusconi controversially introduces legislation to protect his office from prosecution -- just as a bribery case brought against him was about to come to a conclusion. The measure passed.
2006 Italy's Supreme Court confirms Romano Prodi's razor-thin margin of victory over Berlusconi in national elections, clearing the path for the former European Commission president to regain control of Palazzo Chigi after an 8-year hiatus.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
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