Italy Key Dates

1915

Italy breaks the Triple Alliance and enters World War I on the side of the Allies.

1918

World War I ends. The Treaty of Saint-Germain grants Italy the regions of Trentino, South Tyrol, and Trieste.

1919–1920

The Biennio Rosso (Red Years), this period sees strikes and massive social unrest.

1922

Following the “March on Rome,” Benito Mussolini is appointed Prime Minister by the King.

1925–1926

Mussolini dismantles democratic institutions, suppressing opposition parties to establish a totalitarian dictatorship.

1929

Mussolini signs the Lateran Treaty with the Vatican, establishing Vatican City as an independent state.

1935

Italy invades Ethiopia in a bid to expand its empire.

1938

July

The Fascist regime publishes the Manifesto of Race.

September

Laws strip Jews of citizenship, banning them from schools, and excluding them from professions.

1940

June

Italy enters World War II on the side of Nazi Germany, subsequently invading parts of North Africa, Greece, and Yugoslavia.

The government creates internment camps for foreign Jews but resists Nazi demands to deport them.

1941–1943

Italian-occupied zones in France, Greece, and Yugoslavia act as temporary refuges; Italian authorities largely refuse to hand over Jews to German forces. 

1943

July

The Allies invade Sicily. Mussolini is deposed, the King surrenders to the Allies, and Germany invades northern Italy, setting up a puppet state.

September 

Following Allied landings in Sicily, the Italian government surrenders and switches sides to the Allies. Germany occupies northern and central Italy, establishing the Italian Social Republic puppet state led by a reinstated Mussolini. 
16 October

SS and German police conduct a massive roundup in the Jewish Ghetto of Rome, deporting over 1,000 Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. 
December 

The Fossoli concentration camp becomes fully operational as a major central transit point for Jewish deportees.

1944

January–February

Thousands of Jews are deported from major northern transit hubs, notably Milan, bound for extermination camps.

1944–1945

Despite widespread collaboration from Italian fascist militias, thousands of Italian Jews successfully evade capture or are hidden by non-Jewish Italians. 

1945

Allied forces advance, and partisans liberate the country. Mussolini is captured and executed. Deportations end.

1945-1946

70,000 Jewish refugees arrive in Italy. Italy becomes a centre for illegal immigration to the Palestine Mandate.

1946

A national referendum results in the abolition of the monarchy. The Italian Republic is officially born.