Uprisings, old regimes gone, singularity. These are all things you can expect from the unification of Italy. Hey there, welcome back my learning portfolio! This project was all about Nationalism, and how it affected different countries! So, first of all, what is nationalism? Well, the definition from Oxford Dictionary is “identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.”  More simply put, its the belief that your country is better than others. Our job was to learn about specific nations, and what nationalism did for them, I chose Italy, because I was intrigued by how fast it seemed to happen. The first thing we were assigned to do, was create questions, more specifically, a question for who, what, when, where, why, and how? My questions, as well as their answers are in this screenshot. 

For some context, I will explain a bit about the Italian uprisings and what that meant. The earlier 1848 uprisings were organized revolts that sought to produce an independent state, this state only lasted 16 months. One of the key figures of the Italian nationalist movement was Giuseppe Garibaldi, a leader and military strategist who played a crucial role in the unification of Italy. Garibaldi’s daring exploits, including his legendary uprising Expedition of the Thousand which was a campaign to overthrow the Bourbon kingdom of the two Sicilies (also known as Naples). This campaign succeeded, and in turn captured the imagination of Italians across the country and helped to raise support for the cause of unification. But Garibaldi was not alone in his quest for Italian unity. He was joined by other prominent figures such as Count Camillo di Cavour, the architect of Italian unification, and King Victor Emmanuel II, who would later become the first king of Italy. Together, these leaders and their supporters waged a campaign to free Italy from foreign rule and unite its separated regions under a single flag. They faced obstacles along the way, including opposition from foreign powers like Austria and France, as well as internal rivalries among other Italian states that wanted power for themselves, but in 1861, Italy officially became unified.

During this project we also learned about proper citations, so when researching our respective countries, we could give credit to our sources of information. We got the chance to practice this with a simple in class task where we had to write a paragraph about either slugs and snails. Overall this project was a great way to learn about what nationalism is and how it can affect people, and on a larger scale, countries. Until next time!