I KNOW ITS HARD FOR SOME TO UNDERSTAND WHY SICILIANS CONSIDER THEMSELVES AS SICILIAN FIRST A few achievements in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies relative to the other Italian states, particularly during the nineteenth century: • First pension system in what became Italy (2% deduction from salaries) • Most printing presses of any Italian city (Naples with 113) • Lowest taxes in Italy • Largest naval yards based on number of employees (1900 in Castellammare di Stabia) • Largest iron and steel engineering/manufacturing plant in Italy (at Pietrarsa) • Largest iron casting foundry in Italy (Ferdinandea in Calabria) • Oldest continuously-active opera house in Europe, the San Carlo in Naples (1737, rebuilt in 1816) • First university chair and department in economics (Antonio Genovesi, Naples, 1754) • Dwarf planet Ceres first observed (Giuseppe Piazzi, Palermo 1801) • First constitution in Italy (Sicily in 1812, later suspended) • First steamship in the Mediterranean, the Ferdinando I (1818) • First glass recycling program (1832) • First steel suspension bridge in Italy (Gagliano River in 1832, components from Mongiana Works) • First gas-fuelled public lighting system (1839) • First railroad in Italy (1839) • First seismic observatory in the world (Vesuvius 1841) • First steamboat with screw propulsion in the Mediterranean (the Giglio delle Onde 1847) • First functioning electric telegraph in Italy (1852) • Ranked 3rd country in the world for industrial development (1st in Italy) at Paris International Exhibition (1856) • First submarine telegraph in Europe • First military steamship in Italy (the Ercole) • First maritime code in Italy • First public housing complex/estate in Italy (San Leucio near Caserta) • Highest per capita number of physicians in Italy • First botanical gardens in Italy (Naples and then Palermo) • First school for the deaf in Italy • Lowest infant mortality rate in Italy (1850-1860)
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 12:20:23 +0000
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