The 20th of September: Italian Risorgimento

The wonderful thing about photography as a hobby is that you always get to learn new things.

I saw this sign for a street named “20th September” (Via XX Septembre) in many, many Italian cities, this one being La Spezia at the furthest tip of the Italian Ligurian coast:

This is to highlight an historical event that took place in the year 1870: Italians completing their conquer of the Italian peninsula.

Interesting aside: I find it quite interesting that many countries name streets after important dates in history – but not the Americans. To my knowledge, there is no “July 4” street – at least not anywhere that I’ve seen.

So the very interesting question is: do other cultures feel inspired — or worse, perhaps obligated — to commemorate events in their history?