a wealthy area for centuries, and particularly during Byzantine age, till 1860s, when the Italian Unification happened. The town of Reggio and other parts of the province, as well as Messina and neighbouring parts of Sicily, were devastated by the 1908 Messina earthquake. This was followed by a series of tsunamis that wreaked further damage. In the 1950s there was a mass migration of rural people from Reggio and other provinces in southern Italy to the cities of Rome, Milan and particularly Turin in the north. They were driven by poverty, the poor soils of the region and the chronic lack of employment opportunities to move to places with more thriving economies. Between 1969 and 1973, southern Italy suffered from urban unrest due to the lack of employment possibilities and poor living conditions, and urban protest took place. In 1970, Catanzaro was chosen as the location for a new regional government. Reggio was then the scene of a popular uprising - known as the Moti di Reggio - against the government choice of Catanzaro as capital of the newly instituted Region of Calabria. Strikes and demonstrations occurred and went on for more than a year, and were sometimes put down brutally by the police and the army. The railway service from Sicily was disrupted, the airport, post offices and TV station were occupied at different times, and police stations were assaulted. Three people were killed, more than two hundred wounded and over four hundred were charged with public-order offences. The Italian government responded to this by confirming Catanzaro as the regional capital but arranging for the regional assembly to be held at Reggio. A new port and steel works were announced at Gioia Tauro, to create employment in the area, but before the steel works was completed, the price of steel collapsed and the steel works were abandoned. The port however was built, but another project, a new power station, did not go ahead because of environmental factors. The port has since become a busy container terminal handling more than three million shipping containers each year, and new roads have been built to handle the resulting increase in traffic. Economy The region is famous for the production of the Bergamot orange. Production mostly is limited to the Ionian coastal region of the province of Calabria in Italy, to such an extent that it is a symbol of the entire region.