Venetian spread to other continents as a result of mass migration from Veneto between 1870 and 1905, and 1945 and 1960. This itself was a by-product of the 1866 Italian annexation and heavy taxations (tassa sul macinato/mill tax), because the latter subjected the poorest sectors of the population to the vagaries of a newly integrated, developing national industrial economy centered on north-western Italy. Tens of thousands of starving peasants and craftsmen were thrown off their lands or out of their workshops, forced to seek better fortune overseas.