X-Nico

24 unusual facts about Sicily


1944 in organized crime

September 16 - Leaders of the Blocco del popolo (The Popular Front) in Sicily, the communist Girolamo Li Causi and socialist Michele Pantaleone, went to speak to the landless labourers at an election rally in Villalba, challenging Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini in his own personal fiefdom.

Aditya Bhattacharya

Presently he is married to an Italian, Maria Giovanna and divides his time between Sicily and Mumbai.

Angelo Bruno

Born in Villalba, Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, Bruno emigrated to the United States in his teens and settled in Philadelphia.

Bronte House

Lowe completed the construction of the house and its gardens and named it after Lord Nelson, who was known as the Duke of Bronte (a town in Sicily).

Carmine Falcone

Lastly, his elder son Mario's deportation to Sicily, physical appearance and desire to redeem and legitimize the Falcone family name are all traits shared with Michael Corleone.

Dago Creek

The name derives from the numerous Sicilian fishermen who would anchor in the protected waters during closed fishing periods and collectively celebrate their heritage with plenty of food and wine.

Dormouse

During the Pleistocene, giant dormice the size of large rats, such as Leithia melitensis, lived on the islands of Malta and Sicily.

Double clarinet

In Italy, the Sicilian zampogna bagpipe, also called a ciaramedda, is additionally referred to as a "doppio clarinetto" (double clarinet), because of its two equal length single reed chanters.

Grevillea alpina

In 2003, it was reported that the fungal disease Phytophthora palmivora had been detected in plant nurseries in Sicily, leading to root rot and death of potted Grevillea cultivars.

Italian submarine Enrico Toti

1- patrol the mediterranean sea with special attention to the Channel of Sicily during the Cold War; for this reason their main base was the Military Arsenal of Augusta (Syracuse);

Kempinski Hotel Giardino di Costanza

The Resort stands among rows of vineyards and olive groves in the western side of Sicily, near Mazara del Vallo, in the province of Trapani.

Kewullay Conteh

After two seasons for Venezia, one in Serie B and one in Serie A, Conteh, together with many other team players, left Venezia for Palermo in 2002 after chairman Maurizio Zamparini bought the Sicilian team.

Kirk Haston

He and his wife Kasey soon returned from Sicily to Middle Tennessee when he was waived due to a right knee injury prior to the start of the season.

Lancia 3 RO

In North Africa and Sicily with the top of the cab cut away and lower sideboards the Lancia 3 Ro became well suited for desert warfare serving as a self-propelled gun porting the Cannone da 90/53 as well as the 100/17 howitzer.

Lucy Tyler-Sharman

In 1994 she won an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship as a sprinter and represented Australia in the World Championships in Sicily finishing fourth.

Ludwig Heilmann

His battalion fought near Francoforte and Centuripe near Regalbuto, Bronte and Maletto.

Nino Bixio

At Bronte, on August 4, 1860, the recovered Bixio bloodily repressed one of these revolts with two battalions of Redshirts.

Otto Kerner, Jr.

He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for merit and the Soldier's Medal for rescuing a drowning soldier off the coast of Sicily.

Pierre de Brézé

He had made his name in the English wars when in 1433 he joined with Yolande, queen of Sicily, the constable Richmond and others, in chasing from power Charles VII's minister La Trémoille.

Roman mole

(It was last been recorded on Sicily in 1885. There is also an unconfirmed report about an isolated subpopulation in the Var region of southern France.)

SS Empire Bairn

Empire Bairn was a member of Convoy NV 7 which sailed from Naples, Italy on 3 November 1943 and arrived at Augusta, Italy on 5 November.

Veit Hanns Schnorr von Carolsfeld

He was a friend of the poet Johann Gottfried Seume, whom he set out to accompany in 1801 on a journey to Syracuse, Sicily, but separated from him after travelling no further than Vienna.

Via Valeria

A second Via Valeria, the Via Valeria of Sicily, connected Messina and Siracusa.

Zelkova sicula

The only known population, found in 1991, consists of 200–250 plants growing on the Monti Iblei area, in Buccheri, in southeast Sicily near Syracuse.


1983 in organized crime

Sicilian mafioso Salvatore Contorno begins anonymously writing letters to the police with information on the mafia.

A.C.R.D. Acicatena

Associazione Calcio Riunite Dilettantistica Acicatena is an Italian association football club located in Aci Catena, Sicily.

Álvaro de Bazán, 2nd Marquis of Santa Cruz

The other male of the family, Fernando, became Chancellor, Rector, of the University of Salamanca, and later, after ecclesiastical jobs at Seville and Cordoba, Archbishop of Palermo, Sicily, Italy .

Amatus of Montecassino

Amatus describes the Norman sieges of Bari and Salerno, the conquest of Sicily, and the career of Robert Guiscard, as well as the Gregorian Reforms seen from the papal point-of-view, interspersed with reports of miracles and prophecies.

Antonio del Duca

Antonio del Duca or Lo Duca (Cefalù 1491 — Rome 1564) was the Sicilian friar whose persistent campaign for an official veneration of the "Seven Angelic Princes" was partly answered in the dedication of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, constructed to the orders of Pope Pius IV within the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian.

Battle of Panormus

Towards the end of 252 BC or early 251 BC, Carthage had put down a Libyan revolt in Africa and sent an army under the command of Hasdrubal, son of Hanno the Great, to Sicily.

Benedict T. Viviano

In a city of French foundation but mainly German population with a strong African American minority, his family belonged to the city's community of Italian people, itself divided into Lombards and Sicilians.

CAID

Qaid (also caid or kaid), various forms of responsible official found in places ranging from the Kingdom of Sicily to rural North Africa

Charles Anthony Schott

Mr. Schott was a member of the Government parties that observed the total eclipse of the sun in August, 1869, at Springfield, Illinois, and at Catania, Sicily, in December, 1870.

Corsican hare

It is common and widespread on Sicily where it occurs from sea-level up to 2400 metres on Mount Etna.

Cuccìa

Cuccìa is a traditional, primarily Sicilian dish containing boiled wheatberries and sugar, which is eaten on December 13, the feast day of Saint Lucy, the patron saint of Siracusa (Syracuse).

Douglas Hopkins

From 1971 to 1973 he worked at several volcanic sites, including the Italian islands of Sicily and Stromboli, as well as Guatemala and Chile.

Dwarf elephant

Fossil remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta (at Ghar Dalam), Crete (in Nomos Chanion at Vamos, Stylos and in a now under water cave on the coast), Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades Islands and the Dodecanese Islands.

Enna

In the time of Agathocles we find Enna for a time subject to that tyrant, but when the Agrigentines under Xenodicus began to proclaim the restoration of the other cities of Sicily to freedom, the Ennaeans were the first to join their standard, and opened their gates to Xenodicus, 309 BC.

Euphemia of Sicily

Euphemia of Sicily (1330–1359) was regent of Sicily from 1355 until 1357 during the minority of her brother, King Frederick the Simple.

Filarete of Calabria

Saint Filarete of Calabria (also the gardener) (c. 1020 – 1070) he was born in Palermo in 1020, into a family of Calabrian origin deported to Sicily by the Saracens, and subsequently released.

Francesco Brancati

Francesco Brancati (1607 in Sicily – 1671 in China) was an Italian Jesuit missionary.

Gigi D'Amico

In 1995 he began a sound engineer course at Centro Professione Musica (CPM), while working as a sound engineer touring Sicily in support of several international artists, including Tom Harrell, Tonino Horta, Rickie Lee Jones, Gloria Gaynor, Temptation, Blonde Redhead, Warmers, and Uzeda.

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara

Honorary citizenship of the town of Sciara, in Sicily, founded in 1670 by Filippo Notarbartolo (the grandfather of the great-grandfather of Giuseppe’s great-grandfather), received from the Mayor of Sciara on 12 December 1999.

Harpalus affinis

In Europe, it is only absent in the following countries or islands: the Azores, the Canary Islands, the Channel Islands, Crete, Cyclades, Dodecanese, the Faroe Islands, Franz Josef Land, Gibraltar, Iceland, Madeira, Malta, Monaco, the North Aegean islands, Novaya Zemlya, San Marino, the Savage Islands, Sicily, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and Vatican City.

Harpalus anxius

In Europe, it is only absent in the following countries or islands: Andorra, the Azores, the Canary Islands, the Channel Islands, Crete, Cyclades, Cyprus, Dodecanese, the Faroe Islands, Franz Josef Land, Gibraltar, Iceland, Madeira, Malta, Monaco, the North Aegean islands, Norway, Novaya Zemlya, Portugal, San Marino, the Savage Islands, Sicily, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and Vatican City.

Illyrius

The children of Polyphemus all migrated from Sicily and ruled over the peoples named after them, the Celts, the Illyrians, and the Galatians.

Italian classical music

Thus, we know that there was a vibrant troubador tradition in the 12th century in the Provence in their language and we know that 1000 miles away on the island of Sicily there was also a vibrant troubador tradition at the Hohenstaufen court of Frederick II, songs sung in the dialect of the people (very much influenced, for example, by Arabic), but it is conjecture as to exactly what either one sounded like.

James II of Aragon

Napoleón (b. Sicily, 1288 – m. 1338), Lord of Joyosa Guarda (Gioiosaguardia) and Acquafredda (in Sardinia); married a daughter of a Majorcan named Guillermo Robert.

Joe C. Davis, Jr.

During the Second World War, he joined the United States Navy and served as a Lieutenant, participating in the invasions of Sicily, Salerno and Normandy.

Kingdom of Southern Italy

A kingdom comprising Southern Italy prior to breaking up into the Kingdom of Naples comprising mainland southern Italy, and the Kingdom of Sicily comprising the island of Sicily.

Margaret of Sicily

Margaret of Sicily (also called Margaret of Hohenstaufen or Margaret of Germany) (1 December 1241, in Foggia – 8 August 1270, in Frankfurt-am-Main), was a Princess of Sicily and Germany, and a member of the House of Hohenstaufen.

Michele Pantaleone

Michele Pantaleone (Villalba 1911 – Palermo, February 12, 2002) was a respected journalist and expert on the Sicilian Mafia and one of the first to shed light on the links between organized crime and political power.

Micropterix trinacriella

It is only known from the area near the northern shore of Sicily, as well as in the surrounding of Mount Etna.

Morgantina treasure

The Morgantina treasure is a set of 16 pieces of Greek silverware with details in gold dating from the third century BC, which was illegally excavated from Morgantina, an Ancient Greek city in Sicily, near modern Aidone.

Necropolis of Pantalica

Pantalica is located on a limestone promontory surrounded by a deep gorge formed by the Anapo and Calcinara rivers between the towns of Ferla and Sortino in south-eastern Sicily.

Nicholas Scibetta

He was the only son born to first generation emigrants, a Mr. Scibetta from Cammarata in the province of Agrigento, Sicily and an Italian-American woman Mrs. Zicarelli from Bayonne, New Jersey.

Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt

In only one of the 39 surviving manuscript copies the letter also bears the closing legend Actum in castris in obsidione Luceriæ anno domini 1269º 8º die augusti ("Done in camp during the siege of Lucera, August 8, 1269"), which might indicate that Peregrinus was in the army of Charles, duke of Anjou and king of Sicily, who in 1269 laid siege to the city of Lucera.

Polizzi

Polizzi Generosa, a town in the Province of Palermo on the island of Sicily, Italy

Reggiane Re.2001

Finally, on 4 May 1942 it moved to Caltagirone in Sicily, with 18 Reggiane under command of Colonnello Bajlon.

Region of Murcia

Under the Moors, who introduced the large-scale irrigation on which Murcian agriculture depends, the province was known as Todmir; it included, according to Idrisi, the 11th century Arab cartographer based in Sicily, the cities of Orihuela, Lorca, Mula and Chinchilla, Spain.

Richard J. Burke

He was married on October 19, 1940 to Josephina Battaglia the daughter of Carmelo Battaglia of Monte Maggiore Belsito, Palermo, Sicily, and Antonia Fasulo of Burgio, Agrigento, Sicily.

Riserva naturale integrale Saline di Trapani e Paceco

Riserva naturale integrale Saline di Trapani e Paceco is a nature reserve in the Province of Trapani between the municipalities Marsala, Trapani, and Paceco at the west coast of Sicily.

Seventh United States Army

The headquarters of the Seventh Army remained relatively inactive at Palermo, Sicily, and Algiers until January 1944, when Lieutenant General Mark Clark was assigned as commander and the Army began planning for the invasion of southern France.

Siege of Lilybaeum

The city of Lilybaeum (modern Marsala), lying on the western end of Sicily, connected the island with Africa and provided Carthage with an advanced harbor on the route to Sardinia.

Southern Italy

The peninsular territories, contemporaneously called Kingdom of Sicily, but called Kingdom of Naples by modern scholarship, went to Charles II of the House of Anjou, who had likewise been ruling it.

The del Carreto Barons of Racalmuto

The del Carreto Barons of Racalmuto were the descendents of Constanzia di Chiaramonte (1290 - 1350) the heiress and daughter of Federico di Chiaramonte, Lord of Racalmuto a member of the prominent Sicilian Chiaramonte family.

Treaty of Benevento

One of the chief authors of the treaty as it stands was a young notary named Matthew of Ajello, later of much fame in Sicily.

Villafranca Tirrena

In fact it offers a wide artistic and architectonic wealth and the possibility to effect trekking routes on the Peloritani or trips towards other towns of Eastern Sicily: Taormina, Catania, Etna, Siracusa, Eolie Isles, Messina, Tindari and Nebrodi Park.

William Steger

He flew fifty-six combat missions piloting British Spitfire aircraft in the Tunisian, Sicilian, and Italian campaigns.