Sicilian (lu sicilianu, Italian: lingua siciliana, also known as Siculu or Calabro-Sicilian) is a Romance language. It is spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands; in southern and central Calabria (where it is called Southern Calabro); in the southern parts of Apulia, the Salento (where it is known as Salentino); and Campania, on the Italian peninsula, where it is called Cilentano (Gordon, 2005). Ethnologue (see below for more detail) describes Sicilian as being "distinct enough from Standard Italian to be considered a separate language" (Gordon). Some assert that Sicilian represents the oldest Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin (Privitera, 2004), but this is not a widely-held view amongst linguists, and is sometimes strongly criticized (2004, p. 151).

Sicilian is currently spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of Sicily and by emigrant populations around the world. The latter are found in the countries which attracted large numbers of Sicilian immigrants during the course of the past century or so, especially the United States, Canada, Australia and Argentina. In the past two or three decades, large numbers of Sicilians were also attracted to the industrial zones of northern Italy and indeed the rest of the European Union, especially Germany.

A Sicilian American (Sicilian: Siculu-miricanu singular, Sicilian: Siculu-miricani plural), is an American of Sicilian ancestry. They are often considered to be Italian Americans but are sometimes treated as a separate group due to cultural and historical differences between Sicily and the mainland.

The first Sicilians came to what is now the United States in the seventeenth century as explorers and missionaries. Sicilian emigration to the US then grew substantially in the period starting in the 1880s and in 1906 as many as a 100,000 Sicilians came to the US. By 1924, immigration restrictions had caused this to plummet. This period saw political and economic shifts in Sicily that made emigration desirable. A great portion of the Sicilian immigrants would settle in New York, Tampa, New Jersey, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans and Milwaukee.

Elements of Sicilian culture came with them such as theatre and music. Giovanni De Rosalia was a noted Sicilian American playwright in the early period and farce was popular in several Sicilian dominated theatres. In music Sicilian Americans would be linked, to some extent, to jazz. Many of the more popular cities for Sicilian immigrants, like New Orleans or Chicago, are pivotal in the history of jazz. In Chicago the predominately Sicilian neighborhood was called "Little Sicily" and in New Orleans it was "Little Palermo." One of the earliest, and among the most controversial, figures in jazz was Nick LaRocca, who was of Sicilian heritage.

Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.

Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov (Russian: Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, Anatolij Evgen'evič Karpov; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once again after Kasparov broke away from FIDE in 1993. He held the title until 1999, when he resigned his title in protest against FIDE's new world championship rules. For his decades-long standing among the world's elite, Karpov is considered one of the greatest players of all time.

His tournament successes include over 160 first-place finishes. He had a peak Elo rating of 2780, and his 90 total months at world number one is second all-time behind only Garry Kasparov since the inception of the FIDE ranking list in 1971.

Since 2005, he has been a member of the Public Chamber of Russia. He has recently involved himself in several humanitarian causes, such as advocating the use of iodised salt.

Garry Kimovich Kasparov (Russian: Га́рри Ки́мович Каспа́ров, Russian pronunciation: [ˈɡarʲɪ ˈkʲiməvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsparəf]; born Garik Kimovich Weinstein, 13 April 1963) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time.

Kasparov became the youngest ever undisputed World Chess Champion in 1985 at the age of 22 by defeating then-champion Anatoly Karpov. He held the official FIDE world title until 1993, when a dispute with FIDE led him to set up a rival organization, the Professional Chess Association. He continued to hold the "Classical" World Chess Championship until his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. He was the first world champion to lose a match to a computer under standard time controls, when he lost to Deep Blue in 1997.

Kasparov's ratings achievements include being rated world No. 1 according to Elo rating almost continuously from 1986 until his retirement in 2005 and holding the all-time highest rating of 2851. He was the world No. 1 ranked player for 255 months, by far the most of all-time and nearly three times as long as his closest rival, Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov also holds records for consecutive tournament victories and Chess Oscars.