Things you didn’t know about Italy and Italians

Buongiorno a tutti, I bet you didn’t know the following about Italy and Italians:

1. The name “Italy” comes from Greek “italos”, which means calf. It was originally given to the region of Calabria by Greek settlers in the 8th century BCE, and was extended to the whole peninsula under Roman emperor Augustus.
2. Italy was the cradle of Etruscan then Roman civilisations, and the center of the first and largest empire in Europe, North Africa and the Near East.
3. The city of Syracuse in Sicily was once the largest Ancient Greek city in the world.
4. The world’s largest Christian building is the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome.
5. Europe’s only three active volcanoes, the Etna, the Stromboli and the Vesuvius, are all in the South of Italy. Mount Etna also happens to be the world’s most active volcano. It has been in quasi uninterrupted eruption for the past 3500 years, and spewing lava on a daily basis since 1999.
6. Two of Europe’s smallest countries, San Marino and the Vatican, are enclaved within Italy.
7. Italy is the fourth most visited country in the world, with some 50 million foreign visitors annually.
8. Italy did not become a unified country until 1863.