Leading his famous Expedition of the Thousand, Giuseppe Garibaldi secured Palermo after fierce fighting against Bourbon forces, forcing a truce and eventual withdrawal of the royal garrison. The victory electrified supporters of Italian unification and marked a critical early triumph in the campaign that would see Sicily and southern Italy joined to the emerging Italian nation within months.
Garibaldi had landed in Sicily weeks earlier with barely a thousand red-shirted volunteers, an audacious gamble against the much larger Bourbon army defending the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Against the odds, his charismatic leadership and the enthusiastic support of Sicilian peasants swelled his ranks as he marched toward Palermo.
The fighting for the city was brutal, involving days of street combat and a bombardment that damaged much of the historic center. Bourbon General Ferdinando Lanza, commanding a garrison many times larger than Garibaldi's force, ultimately agreed to an armistice and withdrew his troops from the city.
The fall of Palermo was a propaganda triumph as much as a military one, proving that Bourbon rule in the south was fatally weak and rallying broader Italian and international support — including eventual backing from the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia — for the unification movement. Within months Garibaldi would cross to the mainland, and by 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed.