History of Sardinia from the Mainland. The repression by the Fascist regime of its opponents within the region was ruthless. Rural Sardinia showed little interest in the Fascist state, while the urban bourgeoise from the cities were its staunchest supporters on the island. Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of Italian Communist Party, was arrested and died in prison. The anarchist Michele Schirru was executed after a failed assassination plot against Benito Mussolini. During World War II Sardinia was a theater of bombing; the cities of Cagliari and Alghero were heavily bombed. The war ended in Sardinia in late 1943, with the shift
Kingdom of Sardinia Sardinia, including the city of Alghero and the semiautonomous Republic of Sassari, and added them to its direct domains. The Giudicato of Arborea, the only Sardinian state that remained independent of foreign domination, proved far more difficult to subdue. Threatened by the Aragonese claims of suzerainty and consolidation of the rest of the island, in 1353 Arborea, under the leadership of Marianus IV, started the conquest of the remaining Sardinian territories, which formed the Kingdom of Sardinia. In 1368 an Arborean offensive succeeded in nearly driving the Aragonese from the island, reducing the "Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica" to just