Corsica and killings culminated in the assassination of Prefect Claude Érignac in 1998. In 2013, Corsica hosted the first three stages of the 100th Tour de France, which passed through the island for the first time in the event's 110-year history. Corsica was formed about 250 million years ago with the uplift of a granite backbone on the western side. About 50 million years ago sedimentary rock was pressed against this granite, forming the schists of the eastern side. It is the most mountainous island in the Mediterranean, a "mountain in the sea". It is also the fourth largest island in
History of Corsica would one day astonish Europe. This was written some seven years before Napoleon was born. The prehistory of Corsica covers the long period from the Upper Paleolithic to the first historical event, the founding of Aléria by the ancient Greeks in 566 BCE. The ancient Greeks, notably Herodotus, called the island Kurnos; the name Corsica is Latin and was in use in the Roman Republic. Why Herodotus used Kyrnos and not some other name remains a mystery, and the phrases of the authors give no clue. The Roman historians, however, believed Corsa or Corsica (rightly or wrongly they interpreted -ica