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The city is home of two world-famous football teams: A.C. Milan and Internazionale F.C.. The famous Monza Formula One circuit is located in the suburbs. The Olimpia Milano is succesfull European basketball team that have won 3 European Cups, a World Cup, 3 Cup Winners' Cups, 2 Korac Cups and 25 National Championships.
The Amatory Rugby Club Milano have won 18 National Championships. Different ice hockey teams from Milan have won 29 National Championships between them.
Milan has 4 subway lines (red, green, yellow and blue line) called Milan Metro which run for more than 80 km. There is a light metro called Metrņ San Raffaele. The new Suburban Railway Service (called "S" Lines) will open from December 2004 in the Milano Metropolitan Area. There will be 10 lines (the service will be similar to French R.E.R. and German S-Bahn) which will run in the greater metropolitan area (more than 7 million inhabitants). Extensions of line 1, 2 and 3 are under construction, giving more than 15 km of track with 10 new stations. Line 5 is also under construction and will be finished in the first half of 2006. A sixth line is in planning stages. Milan also has one of the most exstensive tram systems in the world, with more than 286.8 Km of track.
Milan has a large international airport known as Malpensa International Airport, which is located in Varese, Italy. It also has the Linate Airport within the city limits, and the Orio al Serio International Airport in Bergamo for European traffic. Put together, the three airports make Milan air travel capital of Europe, with more than 29 million passengers a year.
It is presumed Milan was originally founded by the Celts of Northern Italy around 600 BC and was conquered by the Romans around 222 BC, who gave it the name of Mediolanum. In the 4th century A.D., at the time of the bishop Saint Ambrose and emperor Theodosius I, the city became for a short time the capital of the Western Roman Empire.
After the Ostrogothic and Lombard periods, the city re-gained its importance in the 11th century and led other Italian cities in gaining semi-independence from the Holy Roman Empire. During the Plague of 1349 Milan was one of the few places in Europe that was not touched by the epidemic. During the Renaissance Milan was ruled by dukes of the Visconti and Sforza families, who had artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Bramante at their service. After trying to conquer the rest of northern Italy in the 15th century, Milan was conquered by France, and then by Spain, in the early 16th century.
In the 18th century Austria replaced Spain as Milan's overlord, but during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, which saw the city annexed into the French satellite states of the Cisalpine Republic, which itself became the Kingdom of Italy. After the end of the wars, the city became one of the main centers of Italian nationalism, reclaiming independence and the unification of Italy.
In 1859 (after the second of the Wars of Italian Independence) Austrian rule was ended by the kingdom of Sardinia (which transformed into the kingdom of Italy in 1861).
Being a critical industrial centre of Italy, Milan was target of continuos carpet bombing during World War II. The city was bombed even after Pietro Badoglio surrendered to the allied forces in 1943. In fact Milan was part of Mussolini's puppet state Italian Social Republic and an important command centre of the German Army stationed in Italy. When war in Italy was finally over, April 25, 1945, Milan was heavily damaged and entire neighborhoods like Precotto and Turro were radically destroyed. After the war the city was reconstructed and became again an important financial and industrial centre of Italy. See also: Rulers of Milan
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