Salvatore Giuliano

Salvatore Giuliano
Salvatore Giuliano, in his 20s.
Born	(1922-11-16)16 November 1922 Montelepre, Sicily, Kingdom of Italy
Died	5 July 1950(1950-07-05) (aged 27) Castelvetrano, Sicily, Italy
Other names	Turiddu, Turi
Organization	Sicilian Independence Movement

Salvatore Giuliano (Sicilian: Turiddu or Sarvaturi Giulianu) (16 November 1922 – 5 July 1950) was a Sicilian bandit, who rose to prominence in the disorder which followed the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. In September of that year, Giuliano became an outlaw after shooting and killing a police officer who tried to arrest him for black-market food smuggling when 70% 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. He and his band were held legally responsible for the Portella della 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 2000 police and soldiers were deployed against him. He was killed in 1950 amid convoluted circumstances. The historian Eric Hobsbawm described him as the last of the "people's bandits" (a la Robin Hood) and the first to be covered in real time by modern mass media.

Giuliano was born on 16 November 1922, in Montelepre, a rural village in western Sicily, the fourth and youngest child of Salvatore Giuliano, Sr. and Maria Lombardo. His parents were landed peasants who had spent some of their earlier lives in the United States where they had earned the money to buy their farmland.

Turi or Turridu – as he was known to distinguish him from his father – attended primary school in the village from the age of 10 to 13. Although he was a good student, when his older brother Giuseppe was drafted into the Italian armed forces in 1935, he left school to help his father cultivate the family farm. He soon tired of the drudgery of farm work, hired a substitute from the village to take his place, and began trading in olive oil, which brought additional income to the family. Later in life he claimed that he quit school as much from youthful impulsiveness as from economic necessity.