Giuseppe Garibaldi leads his volunteers into north-western Lombardy and forces the Austrians from Varese

Giuseppe Garibaldi, perhaps the best-known Italian in the world at the time, gathered a group of volunteers he called the "Chasseurs of the Alps," and advanced on behalf of Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont-Sardinia into Austrian-held Lombardy. Swearing to rid Lombardy of twenty generations of foreign subjugation he crossed the mountainous north-west and forced the Austrians from Varese. Four days later he took Como, just twenty-eight miles north of Milan. (By John Osborne)