The Italian Peninsula is one of the three main peninsulas of southern Europe (the other two are the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkan Peninsula), each 1,000 km distant from the Po Valle in the north to the Mediterranean Sea central to the south. The peninsula has always been washed by the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west, the Ionian Sea to the south and the Adriatic Sea to the east. The internal part of the Apennine peninsula contains the Apennine mountains, from which it takes its name, the northern part has very extensive plains and the coasts are all flanked by cliffs. Excavations throughout Italy reveal a modern human history dating back to what is called the "Paleolithic period", around 200,000 years ago. Around the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Greek colonies were founded along the entire coast of Sicily and along the southern part of the Italian peninsula. The Romans called this place the "Magna Graecia" this place was heavily inhabited by the Greeks. In the beginning, Rome was a very small agricultural city founded around the 8th century which transformed over the centuries into a large, colossal empire surrounding the entire Mediterranean Sea. In this case the cultures of the ancient Greeks and Romans all came together into one great civilization. They both started working together to get things done. History of the 20th century During the First World War Italy allied itself with Germany and Austria-Hungary and in 1915 it entered the war alongside all its allies. With all the post-war settlements Italy received a small part of the former Austrian territory along the north-eastern border. Around 1922, Benito Mussolini came to power and, in the following two years, removed the government parties and insta...... middle of paper....... The peninsula once again became a political individual, as in 1861, it became the modern Italian nation. In all other periods of prehistory and history, its most desirable country has been shared and contested by several rival groups. Around 700 BC most of the nations in Italy appeared relatively recently, whether by land from the north or by sea. across the Adriatic. They are called, as before, Indo-Europeans, since they speak the subgroup of languages ​​known as Italic. But the main group at this time, the Etruscans, have different origins. Where they came from remains a matter of much scholarly discussion, but by around 500 BC they controlled most of central Italy. In this period the southern part of the peninsula, together with Sicily, was dominated by Greek colonies, which developed mainly in the coastal regions from around 700 BC onwards.