History of Sesto San Giovanni
History of the municipality of Sesto San Giovanni, Italy / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The history of Sesto San Giovanni spans more than a millennium and, since the early twentieth century, is strongly characterized by the presence on Sesto's territories of some of Italy's largest factories and industries.
The earliest historical records of Sesto date back to the ninth century, when the town was a point of reference for the small neighboring municipalities. Over the centuries Sesto remained a predominantly agricultural town until the second half of the 19th century when the first spinning mills opened. With the second industrial revolution and the beginning of the 20th century, Sesto saw several companies settle in its territory: Breda, Campari, Ercole Marelli, and Falck, among others. The new factories attracted labor, the population increased, and the Sesto labor movement was born, which would make a fundamental contribution to the Resistance to the Nazi-Fascist regime, first with the great strikes of 1943 and 1944, then with the armed and clandestine struggle, until the Liberation.
In the 1960s, the industries of Sesto participated in the economic miracle, however from the late 1970s began the long and inexorable period of crisis for the steel and metallurgical industries that led to the decline of the large factories. Beginning in the 1990s, the so-called tertiarization of Sesto began, with new companies in the sector settling on the same land that once housed the large factories and much of which is being redeveloped.