Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi conquered half of Italy with a thousand volunteers and handed it to a king. Born in Nice in 1807, then part of France, to a coastal trading family, he went to sea young, joined Mazzini's Young Italy, and was sentenced to death in absentia for a failed rising in 1834. He spent twelve years in South America, fighting for a breakaway republic in Brazil and then for Uruguay against Argentina, where he learned guerrilla warfare, adopted the red shirts of a Montevideo slaughterhouse as a uniform, and met Anita, who fought beside him. He returned in 1848, fought the Austrians, and conducted the defence of the Roman Republic against French troops in 1849, retreating across Italy pursued by four armies; Anita died on the march. He worked as a candle maker on Staten Island and as a sea captain before returning. In May 1860 he sailed from Genoa with about a thousand volunteers, landed in Sicily, and beat far larger Bourbon forces at Calatafimi and Palermo through speed and local support. He crossed to the mainland, entered Naples by train ahead of his own army, and destroyed the last resistance on the Volturno. He held the largest state in Italy and gave it to Victor Emmanuel II at Teano in October 1860, taking a bag of seed corn and retiring to the island of Caprera. He tried twice to take Rome and was stopped and wounded by Italian troops at Aspromonte in 1862, and fought for France in 1870. He was offered commands by Lincoln and refused. He died in 1882. His name is on streets in almost every Italian town.
- Lived: 1807 CE – 1882 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: military_leader, nationalist, revolutionary
