The Island Adventure - part 3. Sue Iverson-Taylor
three times the size (area) of Corsica.
The coasts of Sardinia are generally high and rocky, with long, relatively straight stretches of coastline, many outstanding headlands, a few wide, deep bays, many inlets and with various smaller islands off the coast. The island has an ancient geoformation and unlike Sicily and mainland Italy, is not earthquake-prone. The mountain ranges and plateaux are separated by wide valleys and flatlands.
In 238 BC, the Carthaginians surrendered Corsica and Sardinia to Rome, and together they became a Roman province. Roman domination of Sardinia lasted 694 years. Over the following centuries, the island was ruled by the Vandals (Germans), the Moors and the Spanish.
In 1708, the rule of the Kingdom of Sardinia passed from King Philip V of Spain into the hands of the Austrians, who occupied the island. In 1718, with the Treaty of London, Sardinia was handed over to the House of Savoy.
In 1799, as a consequence of the Napoleonic Wars in Italy, the Dukes of Savoy left Turin and took refuge in Cagliari for some fifteen years.
In 1861, when Italy was finally united into a single country, the parliament of Sardinia decided to join the Kingdom of Italy.
During the Second World War, Sardinia was an important air and naval base and was heavily bombed by the Allies, especially the city of Cagliari. German troops left the island on 8 September 1943 and retired to Corsica without fighting and bloodshed.
In 1946 Italy became a republic, with Sardinia administered by a special statute of autonomy. By 1951 malaria was successfully eliminated, which facilitated the commencement of the Sardinian tourist boom, mainly focused on beach holidays and luxury tourism.
In the 1970s the economic crisis, aggravated the crime rate, with increasing kidnappings and political subversion, and ended only in the 1990s.
In 1983 a militant was elected president of the regional parliament and several independence movements were born. Some of them became political parties. In 1999 the local languages (Sardinian, Sassarese, Gallurese, Algherese and Tabarchino) received official status together with Italian. The 35th G8 summit was held in Sardinia, in July 2009 and today Sardinia is a European Union region, with a diversified economy, focused on tourism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinia
More on Corsica
A Little Bit About Corsica…
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to France. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland and north of the Italian island of Sardinia. Mountains make up two-thirds of the island. It is 183 kilometres (114 mi) long at longest, 83 kilometres (52 mi) wide at widest, has 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) of coastline and more than 200 beaches.
Corsica is one of the 27 régions of France, although the island is separated from the continental mainland by the Ligurian Sea and is closer to Italy than to the French mainland.
Corsica is split into two departments, Haute-Corse (Upper Corsica) and Corse-du-Sud (Southern Corsica).
After a brief occupation by the Carthaginians, colonization by the ancient Greeks, and an only slightly longer occupation by the Etruscans, it became a province of the Roman Empire.
After rule from the Republic of Genoa starting in 1282, Corsica was briefly an independent Republic from 1755 until its conquest by France in 1769. The French emperor Napoléon Bonaparte was born in 1769 in the Corsican capital of Ajaccio. His ancestral home, Casa Buonaparte, is today used as a museum. The northern town of Calvi claims to be the birthplace of the explorer Christopher Columbus.
In 1814, near the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the island was briefly occupied by British troops. The Treaty of Bastia gave the British Crown sovereignty over the island but it was later repudiated by Lord Castlereagh, who insisted that the island should be returned to a restored French monarchy.
Following the collapse of France in 1940, Corsica was occupied by Italian and German forces but after the Italian armistice in September 1943, Italian and Free French Forces pushed the Germans out of the island, making of Corsica the first French Department to be freed. Subsequently, the US military established 17 airfields, nicknamed "USS Corsica", which served as bases for American tactical bomber groups attacking targets in German-occupied Italy.
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