History
Sicily's history can be divided into four broad periods which, at least to some extent, overlap. Because of Sicily's strategic geographic position, it has been occupied, populated and ruled by a succession of peoples coming from the north, south, east and west. By 1100, it was one of the world's few truly multicultural societies, at once European, African and Asian, the epitome of 'Mediterranean.' What follows is only a brief summary. The chronology lists ancient and medieval events and the civilizations of the world's most conquered island.

Ancient Sicily: The native Sicanians were descended from the first wave of neolithic humans, arriving more than 10,000 years ago. By 1200 BC, the Sicels, an Italic people, lived in the northeast around Messina, while the Elymians, probably of Anatolian origin, colonized the west around Eryx, now Erice, Entella (near Contessa Entellina), and Egesta or Segesta. By 800 BC, the Phoenicians established trading towns in the west, including Zis, now Palermo. Their descendants the Carthaginians followed. Like the Greeks, who arrived in eastern Sicily around the same time, they were an eastern Mediterranean people and used an alphabet based on Phoenician. Greek cities and colonies were rarely united, and in Sicily (as in Greece) often opposed each other. Thus Syracuse came to rival Athens for power. The Romans followed, easily conquering Greek Sicily but contested by the Carthaginians in a series of Punic Wars. They made Sicily the first province of their Empire.
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Medieval Sicily: The fall of Rome ushered in the Middle Ages and Byzantium became the capital of the eastern Roman empire. In the 9th century the Byzantine Empire gradually began to lose Sicily to the rapidly expanding Muslim Arab empire, and this 'Moorish' influence was to be a lasting one. The Normans arrived in the 1060s, bringing Sicily back into the European orbit. Their Italian kingdom was Europe's wealthiest. Roger II, first king of Sicily, was by most accounts a pragmatic but enlightened leader and Sicily during his reign was a multicultural, tolerant society of Christians (both Orthodox and Catholic), Muslims and Jews. Frederick II, remarkable Holy Roman Emperor and, through his mother, descendant of Roger, continued much of this tradition of tolerance until his death in 1250 but there were already open conflicts between Christians and Muslims. The house of Anjou of Naples succeeded but in 1282 was supplanted by Peter of Aragon following the Sicilian Vespers uprising. Henceforth Sicily, though a kingdom, fell under Aragonese and then Spanish rule. Initially, the Renaissance movements barely touched Sicily's art, architecture or philosophy except to shape the careers of painters like Antonello da Messina. The Inquisition was all-powerful, and in 1492 the infamous Spanish edict forcing the conversion or expulsion of Jews had terrible effects in Sicily.
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Modern Sicily: In the same year, the arrival of Columbus in America set the stage for the Mediterranean, and therefore Sicily, to play a lesser role in world politics, of which it previously had been a geographic protagonist. The island was variously ruled from Vienna, Madrid or Naples, and briefly (in the early 1700s) by the Savoys of Turin. In the 1730s the Spanish Bourbons inherited Sicily in connection with their dynastic claim to Naples. Ruling from Naples, these kings spoke Neapolitan as their first language and the two kingdoms, Naples and Sicily, flourished during their reign. In 1816, as what was by then a mere formality, the two realms were constitutionally united. Despite a certain degree of poverty (actually comparable to that of most regions of Europe), Sicily was reasonably wealthy. The major problem was that this wealth was concentrated in the hands of a single social class reluctant to embrace industrialization or substantial social change. This class consisted of the nobility, the Church and a small but emerging 'middle class' of scholars, merchants and tradesmen. Except during Neapolitan riots and Napoleon's invasion, the Bourbons rarely visited Sicily, though Palermo's Chinese Palace and Corleone's Ficuzza Hunting Lodge were built around 1800 as their royal residences on the island.
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Unification: Europe's violent protests of 1848 began in Palermo. These were suppressed but dissent continued throughout Italy. In 1860, owing largely to internal dissension and foreign (British) military influence, Piedmontese troops occupied Sicily. In a fraudulent referendum confirming his authority King Victor Emmanuel of Savoy and his newly unified 'Kingdom of Italy' received 99 percent of all votes cast. The treasuries and mints of Naples and Palermo, Italy's wealthiest cities, were appropriated and during the 1860s a series of anti-Savoy riots were ruthlessly suppressed. The last Bourbon king, Francesco II, was exiled early in 1861 and his descendants returned only in the 1940s. By then, the Savoys, who had propped up Mussolini's disastrous (and criminal) Fascist regime, were being deposed and Italy was being liberated by Allied forces. A sad effect of unification was that widespread illiteracy worsened as the state confiscated Church land, upsetting the existing system of monastic schools. Until the 1870s, most Italians who emigrated for economic reasons were northerners; by 1890 the vast majority were from the south. For most Sicilians, precious little changed for the better between 1860 and 1945. Remarkably, Italian women were not given the vote until 1946, and then only under Allied occupation on the occasion of the referendum (this one more legitimate than that of 1860) ousting the monarchy in favor of a republic. Even today, it is clear to see that equality between genders (sexes) has not been achieved. In Italy women are seriously under-represented in certain professions, as a group they are the least educated Italians, and crimes against them (rape, physical abuse, sexual harassment) usually go unpunished. Divorce was legalized only in the 1970s.
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Today's Sicily: With a new generation, there's a New Sicily, but some social challenges remain. Most are rooted in the 20th century. Amazingly, illiteracy and poverty were probably more rampant in Sicily in 1930 than in 1130, and various Fascist policies of the 1930s (protectionist trade barriers, price controls, old-age pensions, public housing, supposedly 'mandatory' public education) did little to solve serious social problems of this kind. Poor education remains a problem, with as many as 17% of Sicilian youth leaving school before the age of 18. Foreign visitors sometimes ask why Italian television programs imported from abroad are dubbed into Italian rather than presented in their original languages with Italian subtitles. As many as 10 percent of Italians are illiterate and would not be able to read the subtitles in their own language! The Allies occupied Sicily in July 1943 and installed a regional government which, following the complete defeat of Italy in 1945, was to give Sicily autonomous powers. Creating an additional layer of political bureaucracy was not, in retrospect, the perfect 'solution' to many localized problems. Restoring personal liberties and even obtaining the retirement of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Palermo (a royalist of Fascist orientation), the Allies were not just liberators. As administrators, they installed a number of Mafia men as mayors. This established a trend of serious public corruption which continued into the 1970s and, in many ways persists today, when clientilism is still a way of life. Even so, public awareness of corruption and organized crime is keener than before. Unemployment remains high and education is often mediocre, but most Sicilians today enjoy a standard of living that their grandparents never knew and could barely imagine. Italy's new federalism seems to vindicate the political autonomy of regions such as Sicily and South Tirol, but its effects will be strongly felt in a few years when money from the central government stops pouring into Sicily.
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