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submitted 17 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 16 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Explanation: Giuseppe Garibaldi was a 19th century Italian revolutionary who fought for the cause of freedom of all peoples in both South America and Europe. For this reason, he was often called "The Hero of Two Worlds" (Old World being Europe et co and New World being the Americas, for those not familiar with the nomenclature).

However, he was very much an idealist - while he was certainly not above compromise and cooperation with whoever he thought had the best shot at getting the world a little closer to freedom, however imperfectly, he had a tendency to take up some pretty longshot causes, usually cobbling together a ragtag team of motivated volunteers (famously, wearing red shirts in lieu of uniforms) to go up against professional soldiers. Despite his own skill, charisma, and bravery, he doesn't actually win a whole bunch of battles. But we love him anyway! And perhaps, more importantly, he often set the stage for later victories, including the eventual reunification of Italy.

His reputation was significant enough that Abraham Lincoln, at the start of the American Civil War, offered him command of the Union's armies - Garibaldi wrote back saying he would only accept if Lincoln made the war explicitly about abolishing slavery, which Lincoln was not ready to do in 1861. Very based of Garibaldi!

[-] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago

To be fair, he did lead the Expedition of the Thousand during the Unification of Italy, in which he won several battles and conquered Sicily.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 15 hours ago

Red shirts, brown pants. Red shirts to ignore the blood from the wounds. And brown pants. That is all.

this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
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