Milan is renowned as one of the world capitals of design and fashion. The English word millinery, referring to women's hats, is derived from the name of the city. The Lombard metropolis is famous for its fashion houses and shops (such as along via Montenapoleone) and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the Piazza Duomo (reputed to be the world's oldest shopping mall). The city hosted the World Exposition in 1906 and will host the Universal Expo in 2015. Inhabitants of Milan are referred to as "Milanese" (Italian: Milanesi or informally Meneghini or Ambrosiani).

20th Century History

In 1919, Benito Mussolini organized the Blackshirts, who formed the core of Italy's Fascist movement, in Milan. In 1922, Mussolini started his March on Rome from Milan.

During the Second World War Milan suffered severe damage from British and American bombing. Even though Italy quit the war in 1943, the Germans occupied most of Northern Italy until 1945. Some of the worst Allied bombing of Milan was in 1944 and much of them focused around Milan's main railway station. In 1943, anti-German resistance in occupied Italy increased and there was much fighting in Milan.

As the war came to an end, the American 1st Armored Division advanced on Milan as part of the Po Valley Campaign. But even before they arrived, members of the Italian resistance movement rose up in open revolt in Milan and liberated the city. Nearby, Mussolini and several members of his Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana, or RSI) were captured by the resistance at Dongo and executed. On 29 April 1945, the bodies of the Fascists were taken to Milan and hanged unceremoniously upside-down at piazzale Loreto, a major public square.

After the war the city was the site of a refugee camp for Jews fleeing from Austria. During the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s a large wave of internal immigration, especially from Southern Italy, moved to Milan and the population peaked at 1,723,000 in 1971. The population of Milan begun to shrink during the late 1970s, so in the last 30 years almost one third of the total city population moved to the outer belt of new suburbs and small cities that grew around Milan proper. At the same time the city become to attract also increasing fluxes of foreign immigration. Emblematic of the new phenomenon is the quick and great extension of a Milanese Chinatown, a district in the area around Via Paolo Sarpi, Via Bramante, Via Messina and Via Rosmini, populated by Chinese immigrants from Zhejiang, one of today's most picturesque districts in the city. Milan is also home to one-third of all Filipinos in Italy, harboring a sizeable and steadily growing population that numbers just over 33,000 with a birth rate averaging 1000 births a year. Overall, Milan's population seems to have stabilized in recent years, and there has been only a slight increase in the population of the city since 2001.

There are few remains of the ancient Roman colony which later became a capital of the Western Roman Empire. During the second half of the 4th century CE, Saint Ambrose was bishop of Milan and had a strong influence on the layout of the city, redesigning the centre (even if the cathedral and baptistery built by Ambrose are now lost) and building the great basilicas at the city gates: Saint Ambros, Saint Nazarus, Saint Simplician and Saint Eustorgius, which still stand, refurbished over the centuries, as some of the finest and most important churches in Milan.

The biggest and greatest example of Gothic architecture in Italy, the Milan Cathedral, is the fourth largest cathedral in the world after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Cathedral of Seville and a new cathedral in the Ivory Coast. Built between 1386 and 1577, it hosts the world's largest collection of marble statues with the widely visible golden Madonna statue on top of the spire, nicknamed by the people of Milan as Madunina (the little Madonna), that became one of the symbols of the city.

The rule of the Sforza family, between the 14th and 15th century, was another period in which art and architecture flourished. The Sforza Castle became the seat of an elegant Renaissance court, while great works, such as the Ospedale Maggiore, the public hospital designed by Filarete were built, and artists of the calibre of Leonardo da Vinci came to work in Milan, leaving works of inestimable value, such as the fresco of the Last Supper and the Codex Atlanticus. Bramante also came to Milan to work on the construction of some of the most beautiful churches in the city; in Santa Maria delle Grazie the beautiful luminous tribune is by Bramante, as is the church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro.

The Counter-Reformation was also the period of Spanish domination and was marked by two powerful figures: Saint Charles Borromeo and his cousin, Cardinal Federico Borromeo. Not only did they impose themselves as moral guides to the people of Milan, but they also gave a great impulse to culture, with the creation of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, in a building designed by Francesco Maria Ricchino, and the nearby Pinacotech. Many beautiful churches and Baroque mansions were built in the city during this period by the architects, Pellegrino Tibaldi, Galeazzo Alessi and Ricchino himself.

Empress Maria Theresa of Austria was responsible for the significant renovations carried out in Milan during the 18th century. She instigated profound social and civil reforms, as well as the construction of many of the buildings that still today constitute the pride of the city, like the Teatro alla Scala, inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and today one of the world's most famous opera houses. The annexed Scala Museum contains a collection of paintings, drafts, statues, costumes, and other documents regarding opera and La Scala's history. La Scala also hosts the Ballet School of the Teatro alla Scala. The Austrian sovereign also promoted culture in Milan through projects such as converting the ancient Jesuit College, in the district of Brera, into a scientific and cultural centre with a Library, an astronomic observatory and the botanical gardens, in which the Art Gallery and the Academy of Fine Arts are today placed side by side.

In the second half of the 19th century, Milan assumed the status of main industrial city of the peninsula and drew inspiration to the urbanization from other European capitals, center of those technological innovations that constituted the symbol of the second industrial revolution and, consequently, of the great social change that had been put in motion. The great Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a covered passage that connects Piazza del Duomo, Milan to the square opposite of La Scala, was built by Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877 to celebrate Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of united Italy. The passage is covered over by an arching glass and cast iron roof, a popular design for 19th-century arcades, such as the Burlington Arcade, London, which was the prototype for larger glazed shopping arcades, beginning with the Saint-Hubert Gallery in Brussels and the Passazh in St Petersburg.

The tumultuous period of the 20th century, for the rapid economic growth that was accompanied by an increase in the population and the founding of new districts, but also for the strong drive for architectural renewal, has produced some of the milestones in the city’s architectural history such as the Pirelli Tower (1955-59), the Velasca Tower (1958), the creation of new residential districts and, in recent years, the construction of the new exhibition centre in Rho and the requalification of once industrial areas, that have been transformed into modern residential districts and services, like the City Life business and residential center.

On January 23, 2003 a Garden of the Righteous was established in Monte Stella to commemorate those who opposed genocides and crimes against the humankind. It hosts trees dedicated to Moshe Bejski, Andrej Sakharov, the founders of the Gardens of the Righteous in Yerevan and Sarajevo Svetlana Broz and Pietro Kuciukian, and others. The decision to commemorate a "Righteous" in this Garden is made every year by a commission of high-profile characters.