In 1812, Sardinia was hit by a long period of drought which destroyed the crops and caused a serious famine coinciding with a smallpox epidemic; thousands of people died of hunger and disease.

Cagliari was reigned by Vittorio Emanuele I, residing there with his retinue and new taxes were imposed on the Sardinian people to cover the costs of the forced stay of the Savoy court.

In this already tragic situation, with the lords who became increasingly wealthy thanks to the sale of hoarded products and the public officials who used their powers to enrich their assets, the revolt immediately took root in the desperate people.

The conspirators met in Stampace, on a farm owned by the lawyer Salvatore Cadeddu, secretary of the University, located in the town of Palabanda, in the area where the Botanical Garden stands today. There were both middle-class citizens but also commoners and their intent was only to drive out public officials and courtiers who were bringing Sardinia to a catastrophe, it was not a revolt against the sovereign and the monarchy.

The insurrection was set for October 30, 1812 and it involved the assault on the barracks of the Royal Navy, to enter the Castle occupying the most strategic places, arresting the commander of the city, Giacomo Pes of Villamarina, and expelling the courtiers and public officials protecting the king and his family.

But the news came to the tax lawyer Raimondo Garau who informed the king and the Colonel Villamarina, who ordered an intense vigilance.

On the day set for the revolt, while numerous patrols of soldiers controlled the city, some conspirators and the baker Floris were sent to call others on hold, but they came across a patrol of Piedmontese and, frightened, they came back warning the colleagues who for the most part gave up the endeavour.

Meanwhile, the conspirators in the Marina district, not seeing the Stampacini, doubtful and fearful, sent Giovanni Putzolu with some companions to understand what was going on, but they met Colonel Villamarina, who came down from Castello to watch in person and Putzolu, panicked, aimed a pistol at the commander but his friends themselves prevented him from shooting.

Putzolu and Sorgia were immediately arrested and, on 13 May 1813, after a rapid trial, hanged. Cadeddu, Fanni, Zedda and Garau judged in absentia, suffered the same sentence; to Floris was imposed life imprisonment; Salvatore Cadeddu, captured in the Iglesiente area, was hanged on 2 September.

In the central square of the Botanical Garden there is a monument in memory of the conspirators of Palabanda as liberators of Sardinia and for having been punished too severely.

At the beginning of the 1900s malaria was killing about two thousand people per year in Sardinia, so between 1948 and 1950 the "Sardinian Project" took place, the great campaign against the causes of the endemic plague of malaria conducted by ERLAAS (Ente regionale della lotta antianofelica = Regional Institution for the anti-anophelic fight) and funded among others by the Rockefeller Foundation (supervision and scientific direction), UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and ECA (Economic Cooperation Administration). The project was carried out in two phases: in the first the objective was to destroy adult mosquitoes and all houses, public buildings, schools, farmhouses and barns, bridges, monuments, nuraghi, domus de janas, mining wells and quarries, military installations and caves were reclaimed with DDT.

In the second phase, thousands of workers and technicians were employed in the search for the larvae of Anopheles Labranchiae, which, with planes and teams of ground exterminators, sprayed streams and marshes and built reclamation channels. The ERLAAS army was made up of 32,000 men, 200 vehicles and 4 planes.

At the "Alberto Riva Villasanta" Educational Institution, in Garibaldi Square, there still is a monument in memory of the work and sacrifice of these people.

Plaque commemorating the murder of the Spanish viceroy Don Emanuele Gomez de los Cobos, Marquis of Camarassa, killed by members of Sardinian nobility in 1668.

The Spanish Marquis of Camarassa was the Viceroy assassinated following a conspiracy by a group of Sardinian nobles against the Spanish domination in Sardinia in 1660.

In particular, the Marquis and his servant were tortured with the wheel technique (a medieval torture practice in which the condemned man was tied on a wooden wheel in front of the public that could observe while the executioner fractured the bones of the victim). Then their heads were cut off and displayed on the towers of Saint Pancrazio and of the Elephant as a warning, their assets were confiscated and their fields sprinkled with salt.

In the house from which the rifle shots started, in 32, Canelles street in Cagliari, the monument that the Spaniards erected as a memory of the conspiracy is walled. The inscription is in Spanish and in capital characters with adjoining embellishments and italic strokes.

Plaque commemorating Cagliari Football Club's beginnings and the field where it would play from 1924 to 1949. Later the Cagliari side went on to play in Serie A, eventually winning the Scudetto in 1970.

The inscription on the plaque reads:

A PERENNIAL REMEMBER OF THE FOOTBALL GESTURE OF THE CAGLIARI SPORTS CLUB THAT ON THIS LAND BECOME FAMOUS AS A FIELD OF POLA STREET

SINCE 1924 FOR 25 YEARS OF CONSTANT WILL AND GENEROUS COMMITMENT TO PLAYERS AND LOCAL LEADERS

EVOLVED FROM TOURNAMENTS REGIONAL TO THE NATIONALS CHAMPIONSHIP SUCCESSES

UNTIL CONCLUDING THE LEGENDARY PERIOD WITH THE CONQUEST OF THE MYTHICAL ITALIAN CHAMPION SHIELD

THE EX ROSSOBLU FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION

The municipality of Cagliari dedicated the street in which he was born to Pietro Martini, an important historian, in the Castello district and affixed a plaque dedicated to him and his brothers' memory.

Martini was Secretary of State of Sardinia, deputy, director of the Cagliari University Library and a history researcher continuing the work of Giuseppe Manno. He is the author of the "Sardinian Biography", "Ecclesiastical History of Sardinia", "History of Sardinia from 1799 to 1816" and "Compendium of the history of Sardinia" and at his death, in 1866, he left all his books to the Municipality which started and formed the civic library of Cagliari.

Together with the brothers Antonio, a lawyer, and Michele, employed in the Royal Archives, Pietro Martini was the animator and most assiduous editor of the "Sardinian Indicator", a periodical of strict monarchist-absolutist observance.

In 1943, with Italy still at war alongside Nazi Germany, Sardinia and Cagliari became an important strategic target for the Allied air force.

Due to the very serious material and especially human losses endured, on 12 May 1950 the President of the Republic Luigi Einaudi awarded the city the gold medal for military value.

Even today, by watching the few films of that time, the scenario of death and devastation caused by the bombing of familiar and dear places appears unreal.

At 12:55 on Sunday 28 February, the third and bloodiest raid on Cagliari began. In about two hours, 85 planes dropped 538 bombs for 123 tons of explosives. The Palace of the Customs and the Railways of the State station were destroyed, much of the Roma Street fell into disrepair. Already unusable due to the lack of electricity, the sirens did not sound the alarm and many people were surprised away from the shelters: according to official figures, 200 citizens lost their lives, a few hundred others were injured.

Inside the railway station of Cagliari there is the commemorative plaque for deceased workers. The commemorative epigraph of the victims reads:

IN MEMORY OF THE SACRIFICE AND MARTYRDOM

OF RAILWAYS OF SARDINIA

THAT IN WARS AND BOMBARDS

MADE AN HOLOCAUST OF THEIR LIVES

SO THAT THE HOMELAND LIVED

In 1943, with Italy still at war alongside Nazi Germany, Sardinia and Cagliari became an important strategic target for the Allied air force.

Due to the very serious material and especially human losses endured, on 12 May 1950 the President of the Republic Luigi Einaudi awarded the city the gold medal for military value.

Even today, by watching the few films of that time, the scenario of death and devastation caused by the bombing of familiar and dear places appears unreal.

At 12:55 on Sunday 28 February, the third and bloodiest raid on Cagliari began. In about two hours, 85 planes dropped 538 bombs for 123 tons of explosives. The Palace of the Customs and the Railways of the State station were destroyed, much of the Roma Street fell into disrepair. Already unusable due to the lack of electricity, the sirens did not sound the alarm and many people were surprised away from the shelters: according to official figures, 200 citizens lost their lives, a few hundred others were injured.

The commemorative epigraph of the victims, placed by the associations of arms in 2003 reads:

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 28, 1943

THE ATROCITY OF THE WAR SUBJECTED THE WORKING AND PEACEFUL CITY OF CAGLIARI TO REPEATED DEVASTANT BOMBARDMENTS IN THIS PLACE THE ENEMY AIRCRAFT CAUSED TO OUR NOBLE CITY DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

IN MEMORY OF THE INNOCENT VICTIMS

In 1943, Italy was still in war on the side of Nazi Germany. Sardinia and Cagliari became an important strategic objective for the Allied Air Force. For the serious material, and above all, human losses, on May 12th 1950 the President of the Italian Republic Luigi Einaudi gave to the city the gold medal for military valour. Even today, as we can see from the few period films, the scenery of death and devastation caused by the bombings, in places familiar and dear to us, seems unreal.

On Wednesday 17th February 1943, Cagliari suffered the first dramatic raid. In the afternoon, American bombers flew over the city centre, dropping a large number of bombs.

According to the official bulletin 100 people died , 255 others were injured. That day, there was a cruel massacre of unarmed fellow citizens, who had hoped to find a safe shelter in Sant'Efisio's street, between the churches of St. Anne and St. Restituta.

Here below, the inscription commemorating the victims, placed by the civic administration in occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the massacre:

IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON HOURS ON FEBRUARY 17TH 1943

AN AIR SQUADRON SUDDENLY CROSSING THE SAFE HEAVENS OF CAGLIARI THREW ON THE DEFENSELESS CITY ITS LOAD OF DEATH SPLINTERS SOWING MASSACRE IN AN HELPLESS CROWD  WHO TRIED TO ESCAPE TO THE CRYPT OF SANTA RESTITUTA USED AS A SHELTER WITH A NAIVE TRUST

FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE EVENT THE CIVIC ADMINISTRATION INTERPRETING THE FEELINGS OF STAMPACE DISTRICT'S INHABITANTS OF THE SURVIVORS OF THE RELATIVES, GUARDIAN OF REGRET AND OF THOSE WHO ASPIRE TO PEACE AND HATRED DEFEAT PLACED THIS MEMORY AS A WITNESS OF COMPASSION AND AN INVITATION TO SUFFRAGE.

In 1943, with Italy still at war alongside Nazi Germany, Sardinia and Cagliari became an important strategic target for the Allied air force.

Due to the very serious material and especially human losses endured, on 12 May 1950 the President of the Republic Luigi Einaudi awarded the city with the gold medal for military value.

Even today, by watching the few films of that time, the scenario of death and devastation caused by the bombing of familiar and dear places appears unreal.

On May 13, two raids, one in the afternoon and one at night, caused immense devastation in the almost deserted town.

Neither civilian homes nor places of worship were spared.

In the central Giuseppe Manno Street, the seventeenth-century church of Saints George and Catherine, named after the members of the Archconfraternity of the Genoese, patrons of their hometown, was completely destroyed by the bombs.

The epigraph placed in memory of that sacred place reads:

HERE RISED THE DEDICATED CHURCH TO SS. MM. GIORGIO AND CATERINA WHICH THE NATIONALS GENOESE BUILT IN THE XVI CENTURY AND WAS DESTROYED BY CRUENT AERIAL BOMBING ON 13-5-1943

Santa Gilla lagoon is located on the south west coast of the island, in the territories of Cagliari, Elmas, Assemini and Capoterra. This natural site of extraordinary value covers an area of 15,000 hectares, as far as the estuary of Fluminimannu and Cixerri. The importance of this area, where stood the ancient stronghold of the Judicial city of Santa Igia, is not only historical, but also environmental; infact for its natural resources this Lagoon and its ecosystem, represents one of the most interesting wetlands in the European Union. In this area of great naturalistic interest, live also many species of birds, some of them extremely rare, such as pink flamingos, cormorants, herons, who have made the lagoon their natural habitat and their favourite place to breed. Along the way there are some locations where bird watchers can see about 70 kinds of birds and explore the area without disturbing them.