Italian refugees from Libya Italy and soon most of them emigrated in the early 1950s to the Americas (mainly to Canada, Venezuela, Argentina and the United States) and to western Europe (France, Benelux, etc..). After several years under British mandate, on December 24, 1951 Libya declared its independence as the United Kingdom of Libya (a constitutional, hereditary monarchy under King Idris). In 1952 started the exodus of most of the remaining Italian colonial settlers, mainly those in areas away from the main cities. Although in the late 1950s most of the 110000 Italians living in 1940 Italian Libya had already left the former colony,
Italian irredentism in Malta quo ante" returning Malta to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but British interests in the Mediterranean changed it abruptly. So Malta became a British Crown Colony in 1813 even if with diplomatic protests from southern Italian authorities, which was confirmed a year later through the Treaty of Paris. Cultural changes were few even after 1814. In 1842, all literate Maltese learned Italian while only 4.5% could read, write and/or speak English. However there was a huge increase in the number of maltese magazines and newspapers in Italian language during the 1800s and early 1900s, so as a consequence the