y of Savoy acquired part of the former Duchy of Milan, including Turin, and the architect Filippo Juvarra began a major redesign of the city. Now the capital of a European kingdom, Turin had about 90,000 inhabitants at the time.
Late modern and contemporary
A view of Turin in the late 19th century. In the background, the Mole Antonelliana under construction.
Turin, like the rest of Piedmont, was annexed by the French Empire in 1802. The city thus became seat of the prefecture of Pô department until the fall of Napoleon in 1814, when the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was restored with Turin as its capital. In the following decades, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia led the struggle towards the unification of Italy. In 1861, Turin became the capital of the newly proclaimed united Kingdom of Italy until 1865, when the capital was moved to Florence and then to Rome after the conquest of the Papal States in 1870. In 1871, the Fréjus Tunnel was opened, making Turin an important communication node between Italy and France. The city in that period had 250,000 inhabitants. Some of the most iconic landmarks of the city, like the Mole Antonelliana, the Egyptian Museum, the Gran Madre di Dio Church and Piazza Vittorio Veneto were built in this period. The late 1800s were also a period of rapid industrialization, especially in the automotive sector: in 1899 Fiat was established in the city, followed by Lancia in 1906. The Universal Exposition held in Turin in 1902 is often considered the pinnacle of Art Nouveau design, and the city hosted the same event in 1911. By this time, Turin had grown to 430,000 inhabitants.
The Olympic Arch erected for the 2006 Winter Olympics.
After the Great War, harsh conditions brought a wave of strikes and workers protests. In 1920 the Lingotto Fiat factory was occupied. The Fascist regime put and end to the social unrest banning trade unions and jailing socialist leaders, notably as Turinese Antonio
