Giuseppe Garibaldi

Born in Nice in 1807, Giuseppe Garibaldi went to sea as a young man before joining nationalist politics. After taking part in a failed republican uprising, he fled into exile and spent years in South America, where he fought in conflicts in Brazil and Uruguay and built the reputation that would follow him for the rest of his life.

Garibaldi returned to Italy during the upheavals of 1848 and became a leading military hero of the Risorgimento, the long movement for Italian unification. He is especially remembered for the 1860 Expedition of the Thousand, when his volunteer force conquered Sicily and Naples and helped clear the way for a unified Italy.

Although he also served in politics, he is most often remembered as a man of action rather than a statesman. His mix of patriotism, personal bravery, and international fame made him one of the best-known revolutionaries of the nineteenth century.