Facts and Trivias about Sardinia

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10.97 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants

In Italy the average is 7.9 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

http://www.sanita.ilsole24ore.com/ar...?uuid=AbD3fgcJ

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In 2013 the life expentancy was 78.9 years for males and 84.9 for women.

http://www.sanita.ilsole24ore.com/ar...?uuid=AbD3fgcJ


If Sardinia was a sovereign country would score an age expectancy comparable to that one of Norway and Luxembourg, 17th among 198 nations according to the World Health Organization.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ife_expectancy

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In Sardinia were consumed 43,000 quintals of snails in 2011. There are 50 companies operating in the sector, plus others 250 micro-companies. 85-90% of snails are imported from abroad.

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The PISQ (Poligono Sperimentale Interforze del Salto di Quirra) is a restricted weapons testing range and rocket launching site near Perdasdefogu on Sardinia.

It is the largest military range in Italy, composed of 12000 hectares of land owned by the Italian Ministry of Defence, and one of the largest in operation within the European Union and the only operational spaceport in Italy.

The DASS (Distretto Aerospaziale della Sardegna) is a consortium of companies, research centers and universities focused on aerospace industry and research based in Sardinia.


From its very first start, the Salto di Quirra (Sardinia) firing range played a relevant role in Italian space operations. The range belonged to the ITAF Ammunition Research Unit, since 1956 headed by Luigi Broglio whose name had been put forward by Gen. Mario Pezzi. In 1959, the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and ITAF started a research program in the outer atmosphere using rocket-carried probes. In 1961, together with NASA, CNR planned a series of weather experiments releasing clouds of litho-sodium carried in the atmosphere by USA-built Nike-Cajun missiles launched from the Wallops Islands Base (Va) and Salto di Quirra (Italy) range. High altitude atmospheric streams could be measured quite accurately observing contemporarily the litho-sodium clouds from seven ground-stations in Italy (five in Sardinia and one each at Furbara base and Borgo Piave observation post).

The first launch of the series took place on January 12, 1961. A two-stage Nike-Cajun missile released 20 kg of sodium and lithium dust at an altitude of 90 km (270 000 ft). Six launches altogether were accomplished successfully. Broglio and his team set even a record, a triple launch within 24 hours, starting on the morning of January 19 and ending up the evening of the day after. Thanks to media reporting, the world at large was informed of Italian space research activities and that is was operating a missile launching pad. After this exploit, the Salto di Quirra base was involved in many research programs particularly in the European Space Research Organization (ESRO) framework. In 1962 ESRO planned a series of eight launches to study the outer atmosphere and the ionosphere.

These experiments were to be fundamental to build the European Space Agency in the following years: British-built Skylark and French-built Centaure missiles were used for the tests. The high level of both personnel and facilities at Salto di Quirra made it the favourite launching base of ESRO until 1972, following an agreement signed in Paris in 1967 by ESRO's CEO, Pierre Auger.

In 1985 the Avio Company built a vertical structure in Salto di Quirra to test the engines of the European vectors Ariane 3 and Ariane 4 and the Zefiro vector, from its prototype Zefiro 16 to Zefiro 9 down to number 23 in the series.

At Salto di Quirra the second and third stages of Vega were tested thoroughly, the Vega being a new European vector developed and built mostly by Italian firms.


Some pics of the base:




test of the rocket Vega (Advanced Generation European Carrier Rocket) by ESA


the italian Intercontinental ballistic missile Alfa



The USV an unmanned spacecraft by the italian space agency


the tests of the Skylark rocket

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The main training base by the italian intelligence during the Cold War was located in Sardinia, south of Alghero, next to Poglina's beach.

In the base was placed the "stay-behind" paramilitary organization Gladio, with the official aim of countering a possible Soviet invasion through sabotage and guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines.

Its clandestine "cells" were to stay behind (hence the name) in enemy-controlled territory and to act as resistance movements, conducting sabotage, guerrilla warfare and assassinations.

This organization remained secret till the end of the Cold War. The name Gladio is the Italian form of gladius, a type of Roman shortsword.


_{Emblem of "Gladio", Italian branch of the NATO "stay-behind" paramilitary organizations. The motto, "Silendo Libertatem Servo", means "In being silent, I save freedom".}


^{Capo Marrargiu Base (on the right a field that should be used as a runway to deploy quickly the gladio's cells on the invaded territories by the Red Army)}

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Vento di Sardegna (en: Wind of Sardinia)is a sailboat sponsorized by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia. It's crew won many trasnsoceanic regattas such as the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race in 2013 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-...-Atlantic_Race), the Two Handed Transatlantic Race (Twostar) regatta in 2012 and the Route du Rhum in 2010 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_du_Rhum).

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Annually the island hosts some of the world most important regattas like the Loro Piana Super Yacht Regatta and the Maxy Yacht Rolex Cup. Part of the Louis Vuitton Trophy was held in the Maddalena archipelago in 2010.
The caital Cagliari hosts regular international regattas, such RC44 championship, Farr 40 World championship and Audi MedCup; all series which boast current America's Cup contenders like BMW Oracle Racing, Mascalzone Latino and Emirates Team New Zealand as contenders.

Maxy Yacht Rolex Cup


Loro Piana Super Yacht Regatta

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The Sciulara bay in Palau, in the north east of Sardinia is also known as Nelson Bay because it housed the fleet of the british Admiral Horatio Nelson in 1803 and 1805 at the times of the Napoleonic Wars when the Kingdom of Sardinia was allied with the United Kingdom against Napoleon.

The Nelson Bay, The town of Palau in the background and the village of Porto Rafael on the right


Horatio Nelson gifted some silver candlesticks and a crucifix to the church located on the Maddalena Island, today they are exhibited at the diocesan museum.

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Supermag and Geomag is the brand name of a toy construction system created in 1998, consisting primarily of nickel-plated steel balls (spheres) (0.50",12.7mm in diam) and short connecting sticks (27mm) with a magnet on each end (rods). With these two basic elements, a huge number of geometric shapes and structures can be built. Adding panels helps to form rigid structures. Geomag can be used also to make experiments with magnetism and moving structures.

Supermag was invented by Edoardo Tusacciu, founder of Plastwood a company located in Calangianus, Sardinia in 1998.

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Communal lands played an important role in the history of Sardinia. The existence of a collective system of land management is particular to Sardinia, and no similar system has been observed in others areas of the Mediterranean.

This system, called Ademprivio (from the latin ademprivia), presents a strong analogy with other institutions that were once widespread throughout Europe and remained, especially in areas where forestry activities and those related to breeding had a preponderance to agriculture itself.

In the Alps there were such rules or Ampezzo Cadore. In the eighteenth century in England with the Enclosures and the rest of Europe in the nineteenth century was the common tendency to turn these collective properties in Freehold: there was a strong push of the bourgeois world to want to transform the agricultural activities in a more entrepreneurial, seeing the traditional institutions as an obstacle to the emergence of a modern agriculture.

This institution that still exists in Sardinia, guaranteed for centuries the survival of the poorest members of a village population. It enabled villagers, shepherds and farmers of a village to pasture their sheep and other animals and forage for acorns, firewood, and plants on communal land.

Because even the poorest villagers had access to this communal land, and most people within the communities worked either as shepherds or farmers, very little social stratification developed over time. This still exists in the villages today. Furthermore, a sense of symbiosis and community, derived from the use of the land, blossomed within the culture. With a dependence on shared resources, everyone had to work together for survival.

The 28% of the territory of the province of Ogliastra is today still part of communal lands.