December 18, 1966: The Honor of Franca Viola

December 18, 1966: Franca Viola wins a court case. In so doing, she wins honor -- not just for herself, but for millions of women in her country.

She was born on January 9, 1948 in Alcamo, a rural town on the Italian island of Sicily. In such places, old traditions died hard. At 15, became engaged to Filippo Melodia, the 23-year-old nephew of a local Mafia figure. He was soon arrested for theft, and her father demanded she break off the engagement. She did. He fled to Germany.

In 1965, at 17, Viola was engaged to another man, and Melodia had returned to Alcamo, and was trying unsuccessfully to re-enter her life, stalking her and threatening both her father and boyfriend.

In the early hours of December 26, 1965, Melodia and a group of 12 armed companions broke into the Viola home, and kidnapped Franca by dragging her into a car, in the process beating up Viola's mother, and also taking Franca's 8-year-old brother Mariano, who refused to let go of his sister.

Mariano was released a few hours later, but Franca was held for 8 days in the home of Melodia's sister and her husband, a farmhouse on the outskirts of the town, where she was repeatedly raped. Melodia told her that, now, she would be forced to marry him, so as not to become a "dishonored" woman -- honor being something Mafia figures have always claimed to value.

She told him she had no intention of marrying him and, moreover, that she would have him sued for kidnapping and rape. So he decided to do what, in his mind, constituted "going over her heard": On December 31, Melodia contacted Viola's father Bernardo for the paciata (Sicilian for 'appeasement', striking a deal between the families of the man and woman who "eloped").

In Italian law, if a woman married her rapist, the crime was expunged from the record: It was known as matrimonio riparatore: A "rehabilitating marriage." In Italian culture, if a woman refused her husband, or if she refused her father's setup of a marriage, it was considered dishonorable. For all Italy's experimentation in art, music and (especially in the 1960s) film, it was then, and remains today, a rather conservative country.

Bernardo pretended to negotiate with the kidnappers, saying he agreed and consented to the marriage, while collaborating with the Carabinieri (Italy's national police) in preparing a rescue. Viola was freed and her kidnappers arrested on January 2, 1966, 7 days before her 18th birthday. She said her father asked her if she really wanted to marry Melodia. When she said she did not, he told her he would do everything possible to help her.

After Viola's refusal to marry the man who raped her, her family members were reportedly menaced, ostracised, and persecuted by most townspeople. Their vineyard and barn were torched. These events, and the eventual trial, resonated powerfully with the Italian media and public.

Melodia's lawyers claimed Viola had consented to an elopement, fleeing voluntarily to get married secretly, rather than being kidnapped. A jury refused to accept this, and, on December 18, 1966, found Melodia guilty. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, later reduced to 10 years. Five of his friends were acquitted, and the others received relatively mild sentences.

Melodia was released from prison in 1976, and was killed on April 13, 1978, in a Mafia-style execution before he could return to Sicily.

In Italy, the article of law whereby a rapist could vacate his crime by marrying his victim was not abolished until 1981. And sexual violence became a crime against the person, instead of against "public morality," only in 1996.

In December 1968, shortly before turning 21, Franca Viola married the man she loved, Giuseppe Ruisi. The President of Italy (head of state, not head of government), Giuseppe Saragat, sent the couple a wedding gift. Pope Paul VI received them in a private audience soon after the wedding. They had two sons and one daughter. In 2014, President Giorgio Napolitano awarded her the title of Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica (Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic), one of Italy's highest honors. As of December 18, 2022, Franca and Giuseppe, and their children, still live in Alcamo.

Franca Viola's story has been fictionalized in film, in 1970 with The Most Beautiful Wife, starring Ornella Muti; and in 2022 with The Girl from Tomorrow, starring Claudia Gusmano.

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December 18, 1966 was a Sunday. Elsewhere in Italy, future soccer star Gianluca Pagliuca was born.

This was the last week of the regular season in the NFL, and these games were played:

* The New York Giants lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 17-7 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, 37-28 at District of Columbia Stadium (later renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium).

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Atlanta Falcons, 57-33 at Atlanta Stadium (later renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium).

* The Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings, 41-28 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 38-10 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 27-23 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the San Francisco 49ers, 30-14 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

* And, with an odd number of teams in the NFL that season, each week had one team with the week off. This week, it was the Detroit Lions.

There were 3 games in the American Football League:

* The expansion Miami Dolphins beat the Houston Oilers, 29-28 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Denver Broncos, 38-21 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.

* And the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Diego Chargers, 27-17 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego. This was the last game the Chargers played there: The next season, they moved into the new San Diego Stadium, which was renamed Jack Murphy Stadium in 1981 and Qualcomm Stadium in 1997. They played there until 2016, moving back to their original city, Los Angeles.

Baseball was out of season. There were 2 games in the NBA. The Cincinnati Royals beat the Baltimore Bullets, 138-114 at the Cincinnati Gardens. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics, 127-125 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Jerry West scored 35 points.

And in the last season of the NHL's "Original Six Era," all of the not-so-original 6 teams were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Detroit Red Wings, 5-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

December 16, 1907: The Great White Fleet Sets Sail

USS Nebraska

December 16, 1907: The Great White Fleet sets sail. It was Theodore Roosevelt's idea.

The 26th President of the United States was fond of quoting what he called an African proverb: "Speak softly and carry a big stick. You will go far." He was also a big believer in a big navy: The 1st of the 42 books he wrote, still a record for any President, was The Naval War of 1812, published in 1882, when he was only 23 years old.

After long neglecting the Navy, Congress started generous appropriations in the late 1880s, upon the request of President Benjamin Harrison and Secretary of State James G. Blaine, who famously ran for President the 3 previous times. Beginning with just 90 small ships, over one-third of them wooden and obsolete, the Navy quickly added new steel fighting vessels. 

TR dispatched 16 U.S. Navy battleships of the Atlantic Fleet on a worldwide voyage of circumnavigation from December 16, 1907 to February 22, 1909. The hulls were painted white, the Navy's peacetime color scheme, and decorated with gilded scrollwork with a red, white, and blue banner on their bows. The superstructures were painted buff. These ships later came to be known as the Great White Fleet.

The purpose of the fleet deployment was multifaceted. Ostensibly, it served as a showpiece of American goodwill, as the fleet visited numerous countries and harbors. In this, the voyage was not unprecedented. Naval courtesy calls, many times in conjunction with the birthdays of various monarchs and other foreign celebrations, had become common in the 19th Century. Port calls showcased pomp, ceremony, and militarism during a period of rising prewar nationalism.

Additionally, the voyage of the Great White Fleet demonstrated both at home and on the world stage that the U.S. had become a major sea power in the years after its triumph in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

With the battleship USS Connecticut as flagship, under the command of Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans, the fleet sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia for Trinidad, British West Indies; thence to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Punta Arenas, Chile; Callao, Peru; Magdalena Bay, Mexico; and north along the West Coast, arriving at San Francisco on May 6, 1908.

Leaving that port on July 7, the fleet visited Honolulu; Auckland, New Zealand; Sydney, Melbourne and Albany, Australia; Manila, Philippines; Yokohama, Japan; and Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka); then arriving at Suez, Egypt, on January 3, 1909. While there, word was received of an earthquake in Sicily, thus affording an opportunity for the United States to show its friendship to Italy by offering aid to its victims.

Leaving Messina on January 9, 1909, the fleet stopped at Naples, Italy; thence to Gibraltar; arriving at Hampton Roads on February 22, 1909. There, President Roosevelt, in his last 10 days in office, reviewed the fleet as it passed into the roadstead. He was very pleased with the results of the tour.

In 1984, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was launched, named the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Although its official call sign is "Rough Rider," it is nicknamed "The Big Stick."

*

December 16, 1907 was a Monday. This was also the day of the Yolande coal mine explosion in Alabama. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball was out of season. Football season had just ended. And professional basketball and hockey barely existed. So there were no scores on this historic day. 

October 7, 1985: The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro

October 7, 1985: The Italian cruise ship MS Achille Lauro is hijacked by 4 members of the Palestine Liberation Front, as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said, Egypt, a stopover on its way from its home port of Naples, Italy to Ashdod, Israel.

Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons. After being refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers killed 69-year-old disabled Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, and then threw his body overboard. He turned out to be the only person who died in the story.

The ship then headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct, and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner. This plane, however, was intercepted by U.S. fighter aircraft and directed to land in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested and later tried for murder. All 4 were imprisoned, but all lived long enough to be released

* Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi, 22 years old at the time of the hijacking, disappeared in 1991 while on parole. In 1994, Spanish authorities believed him to be in their country.

* Bassam al-Asker, 16, was granted parole in 1991. He was last heard from in 2007, in Lebanon, training Palestinian militiamen to fight the U.S. Army alongside Iraqi rebels.

* Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif, 19, served 20 years. On July 7, 2008, he was expelled from an illegal immigrant detention center in Rome. He has not been heard from since.

* Youssef Majed al-Molqi, 22, convicted of killing Leon Klinghoffer. He was sentenced to 30 years. He left the Rebibbia prison in Rome on February 16, 1996, on a 12-day furlough, and fled to Spain, where he was recaptured and extradited back to Italy. On April 29, 2009, Italian officials released him from prison early, for good behavior, and then deported to Syria. That's the most recently the West has heard about any of the hijackers.

The ship was stricken by bad luck throughout its history. It was launched in 1947, as the Dutch passenger liner MS Willem Ruys. It had a collison in 1953. In 1965, it was bought by Achille Lauro, a Mayor of Naples, and a member of Italy's national legislature, the Chamber of Deputies. He was an opportunist, a fascist in the Mussolini years and a social democrat afterward. He named the ship for himself, but before he could complete its renovation, there was an onboard explosion. Lauro died in 1982, before the hijacking. A fire off the coast of Somalia finally sank the ship in 1994.

*

October 7, 1985 was a Monday. Baseball player Evan Longoria was born. This was the day after Major League Baseball's regular season ended, and the Playoffs had not yet begun. Therefore, the only score on this history day was on ABC Monday Night Football: The Washington Redskins beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 27-10 at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington.

July 10, 1943: The Allied Invasion of Sicily

July 10, 1943: Operation Husky begins, as the Allies invade the island of Sicily. This begins the liberation of Fascist-controlled Italy.

As had already happened in North Africa the preceding November -- and with many of the same troops -- and would happen the following June in France, this was an amphibious operation with air cover. By August 17, Sicily was secured, as all Axis forces on the island either evacuated, or were captured before they could. The Allied progress so rattled the Fascist national government that it removed its own founder, Benito Mussolini, from power.

On September 3, the Allies invaded Italy proper, as Salerno, Calabria and Taranto. Chancellor Adolf Hitler got so scared, he diverted 1/5th of the entire German Army from the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union to southern Europe, fighting the Allies in Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. It did him no good: On June 4, 1944, Rome was liberated. Two days later, the Allies invaded "Fortress Europe" at Normandy.

*

July 10, 1943 was a Saturday. Tennis legend Arthur Ashe was born. And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees swept a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox, 9-2 and 8-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ernie "Tiny" Bonham went the distance to win the opener. Charles Wensloff went the distance to win the nightcap.

* A doubleheader was split at the Polo Grounds. The Chicago Cubs won the 1st game, 10-4. The New York Giants won the 2nd game, 9-2. Giants player-manager Mel Ott went 2-for-6 with a home run and 3 walks over the 2 games.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 23-6 at Ebbets Field. Yes, that's baseball, not football. The Dodgers scored 10 runs in the 1st inning, and another 10 in the 4th. They only got 1 home run, from Al Glossop. Billy Herman went 3-for-4 with a walk and 7 RBIs. Red Barkley went 3-for-5 with a walk and 4 RBIs. Augie Galan went 2-for-3 with 2 walks and 4 RBIs.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Braves, 6-0 at Braves Field in Boston. Howie Pollet pitched a 4-hit shutout. Stan Musial went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Senators beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Early Wynn pitched a 4-hit shutout. He would later help the Indians win 2 Pennants.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-1 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.)

* The Boston Red Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 6-3 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The Browns' bullpen and defense collapsed in the top of the 10th inning, allowing 3 runs.

May 1, 1947: The Portella della Ginestra Massacre

May 1, 1947: Separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano and his men shoot 38 people, killing 11, during May Day celebrations in Sicily. It is known as the Portella della Ginestra Massacre.

Giuliano was born in 1922 in Montelepre, a rural village in Sicily. In 1943, following the Allied invasion of Sicily, he became an outlaw, after shooting and killing a police officer who tried to arrest him for black market food smuggling, at a time when 70 per cent of Sicily's food supply was provided by the black market.

He maintained a band of subordinates for most of his career. He was a flamboyant, high-profile criminal, attacking the police at least as often as they sought him. In addition, he was a local power-broker in Sicilian politics between 1945 and 1948, including his role as a nominal colonel for the Movement for the Independence of Sicily. It might have seemed like a good idea when Benito Mussolini and his Fascists were in charge of Italy as a whole, but, following Mussolini's execution in 1945, Italy remaining united was the best thing for the country.

Giuliano and his band were held legally responsible for the Portella dell Ginestra Massacre, though there is some doubt about their role in the numerous deaths which occurred. The widespread international press coverage he attracted made him an embarrassment to the Italian government, and throughout his banditry, up to 2,000 police and soldiers were deployed against him.

Giuliano was called "the people's bandit," and was the first such figure to be covered in real time by modern mass media. He had the looks of a Rudolf Valentino, but the ruthlessness of a Lucky Luciano. He was less a Robin Hood, more a Pancho Villa -- or, perhaps more accurately, a cross between Lenin and John Dillinger. He was assassinated on July 5, 1950, in Castelvetrano, Sicily, dead at age 27. No great loss.

*

May 1, 1947 was a Thursday. There were only 3 scores on this day, all in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5 at the Polo Grounds. Johnny Mize hit a home run. Stan Musial went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-2 at Ebbets Field. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Washington Senators, 14-5 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.