Italy participated in World War I as an ally of Great Britain, France, and Russia against the Central Powers. Almost all of Italy's fighting was on the Eastern border, near Austria. After the "Caporetto defeat", Italy thought they would lose the war. But, in 1918, the Central Powers surrendered, and Italy gained the Trentino-South Tyrol, which once was owned by Austria.
In 1922, a new Italian government started. It was ruled by Benito Mussolini, the leader of Fascism in Italy. He became Head of Government and dictator, calling himself "duce" - which means "leader" in Italian. He became friends with German dictator Adolf Hitler. Germany, Japan, and Italy became the Axis Powers and entered World War II together in 1940 against France, Great Britain, and later the Soviet Union. During the war, Italy controlled most of the Mediterranean Sea.
On July 25, 1943, Mussolini was removed by the Great Council of Fascism, and, on September 8, 1943, Badoglio said that the war as an ally of Germany was ended. Italy started fighting as an ally of France and the UK, but Italian soldiers did not know whom to shoot. In Northern Italy, a movement called Resistenza started to fight against the German invaders.
Mussolini tried to make a small Northern Italian fascist state, the Republic of Salò, but it failed. On April 25, 1945, Italy became free. The state became a republic on June 2, 1946, and, for the first time, women were able to vote. Italian people ended the Savoia dynasty and adopted a republic government.
In February 1947, Italy signed a peace treaty with the Allies losing all the colonies and some territorial areas: (Istria and parts of Dalmatia).
Since then Italy has joined NATO and the European Community (as a founding member), becoming one of the seven biggest industrial economies in the world.
The railway network in Italy totals , the 17th longest in the world. High speed trains include ETR-class trains which travel at .
If
If is a word to describe a statement where one thing depends on something else.
For example:
If — is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. It appeared in the "Brother Square Toes" chapter of Kipling's book "Rewards and Fairies". In a 1995 BBC opinion poll, it was voted Britain's favourite poem. It is arguably Kipling's most famous poem.
Island
An island is a piece of ground that is surrounded by a body of water such as a lake, river or sea. Water is all around an island. Islands are smaller than continents. The largest island in the world is Greenland, because Australia is a continent.
Australia is a continent because it does not have any active volcanic regions, the only continent with this distinction. All of the worlds lands were joined with Antarctica as part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana until the plate began the continental drift about 96 million years ago.
Some islands are their own countries. Examples of island that are their own countries include Cuba, Jamaica, and Cyprus. There are many others. Other islands have more than one country, such as Borneo and Hispaniola.
There are many kinds of island:
Interim
Interim means "in between" or "transitional" (moving from one time or place to another), or "temporary."
Some common "interim" items:
Idiom
An idiom is a common phrase which means something different from its literal meaning but can be understood because of their popular use.
Because idioms can mean something different from what the words mean it is difficult for someone not good at speaking the language to use them properly. Some idioms are only used by some groups of people or at certain times. The idiom "shape up or ship out", which is like saying "improve your behavior or leave if you don't", might be said by an employer or supervisor to an employee, but not to other people.
Idioms are not the same thing as slang. Idioms are made of normal words that have a special meaning known to almost everyone. Slang is usually special words, or special meanings of normal words that are known only to a particular group of people.
To learn a language a person needs to learn the words in that language, and how and when to use them. But people also need to learn idioms separately because certain words together or at certain times can have different meanings. In order to understand an idiom, one sometimes needs to know the culture from which the idiom comes.
To know the history of an idiom can be useful and interesting, but is not necessary to be able to use the idiom properly. For example, most native British English speakers know that "No room to swing a cat" means "there was not much space" and can use the idiom properly. However, few know this is because 200 years ago sailors were punished by being whipped with a "cat o' nine tails". A big space was cleared on the ship so that the person doing the whipping had room to "swing the cat".
An idiom is a phrase whose meaning cannot be understood from the dictionary definitions of each word taken separately. The linguist's term for the real meaning of an idiom is the subtext.
Articles by Oxfam and the BBC have said that many idioms in English are unclear, or ambiguous. Many are understood differently in different countries. Many of the examples are taken from face-to-face talk, but may also apply in written reports.
Vocables are sounds that are not proper words, but mean something, and are often ambiguous. One is a long drawn-out sound "hmmmmmm".
One suggestion is that these idioms are used to smooth over difficult areas in social interaction. They cover passive-aggressive statements which might cause more conflict if openly expressed.
IELTS
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) tests how fluent you are in the English language. People who take the test take the Academic Module or the General Training Module. The academic one is for people who want to go to university. The general one is for people who want to do other training or want to get work experience. People who want to emigrate to a country that uses English also take the general one.
Most universities in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States accept the IELTS. Many professional companies do as well.
Ink
Ink is a liquid that is used to write, draw, print, or make marks. The word ink is from Latin and means "colored water". Ink is used in pens, in some computer printers, and in printing presses. In some countries, people write by using ink and brushes. People usually write or print using black ink, but ink can be any color. The first ink was used in Egypt about 2600 BC.
The first inks were carbon inks, made from soot, which is 80% carbon, water and gum arabic. Red ink would need iron oxide (such as haematite) from ground rocks instead of soot. Later, in Europe, people used iron gall ink. This is the kind of ink Johann Sebastian Bach and Leonardo da Vinci used. Now ink colours are produced by man-made dyes.
A disadvantage of many kinds of ink is that they may smudge when wet, spoiling the picture or writing. If water-based ink is used, the writing situation needs to be stable, with the writer seated at a table. Ink in a ballpoint pen (biro) is a kind of gel. It is held in a thin long cylinder (tube) inside the pen. The ink does not fall out of the cylinder as it sticks to the sides of the tube. Therefore ballpoint pens can be used in a wider range of circumstances compared to water-based inks.
Inch
The inch is a unit of length in the Imperial system and the United States customary system. The abbreviation for inches is in or ". There are 12 inches in a foot. One inch is equal to 2.54 centimetres.
The word "inch" came from Middle English "unche", which came from Old English "ynce", from Latin "uncia" meaning "a twelfth part".