The story of this place
On 11 May 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi landed at the Sicilian port of Marsala with about 1,000 red-shirted volunteers—the famous 'Mille' (Thousand)—launching one of history's most audacious campaigns. Sailing from Genoa in two steamers, they came to liberate Sicily from the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. British warships in the harbour, there to protect the local wine trade, inadvertently discouraged Bourbon vessels from firing during the landing. Against all odds, Garibaldi's ragtag force, swollen by Sicilian rebels, defeated a far larger royal army and swept up the peninsula. Within months the whole south fell, and Garibaldi handed his conquests to King Victor Emmanuel II—a decisive step toward a united Italy in 1861.