Siege of Saïo the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, proclaimed the colony of "Africa Orientale Italiana" (AOI, Italian East Africa), formed from Ethiopia (after the Italian victory in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, fought 3 October 1935 – May 1936) and the existing Italian possessions of Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. On 10 June 1940, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France, which made Italian military forces in Libya a threat to Egypt and those in Italian East Africa a danger to the British and French colonies in East Africa. Italian belligerence also closed the Mediterranean to Allied merchant ships and endangered British supply routes
Italian Swiss Colony (wine) tourist attraction. By 1905, the wines had won medals at various international competitions. By 1910 the company owned over in various holdings in the Central Valley. As the movement for prohibition of alcohol in the United States grew, Sbarboro became a leading spokesman for wine and temperance, but lived to see the beginning of prohibition on January 16, 1920. The Italian Swiss Colony operation (then owned by National Distillers) was acquired in 1953 by Louis Petri of Petri Wine (founded in 1886). Petri shepherded the growth of Italian Swiss Colony as a mass-market brand; wine was shipped in tankers to