Balbo Column (468600957)

Balbo Column — from the ruins of the Ancient Roman theatre (Ostia Antica) in Ostia (Italy, Lazio) along the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field — Chicago.

• Italo Balbo (June 5, 1896 - June 28, 1940) was an Italian blackshirt leader, aviator, governor of Italian occupation of Libya, and heir apparent of Benito Mussolini.

• On November 6, 1926, despite the fact that he knew nothing at the time about aviation, Balbo was appointed Italy's Secretary of State for Air by Mussolini. He went through a crash course of flying instruction and then set out to build the Regia Aeronautica, the Italian air force. On August 19, 1928 he became General of the Air Force and on September 12, 1929 Minister of the Air Force.

• Balbo led two transatlantic flights. The first was the 1930 flight of twelve Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boats from Orbetello, Italy to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between December 17, 1930 and January 15, 1931. From July 1 - August 12, 1933 he led a flight of 24 flying boats on a round-trip flight from Rome to the Century of Progress in Chicago, Illinois. The flight ended on Lake Michigan near Burnham Park. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated this column from the ruins of the ancient Roman Ostia Antica theatre in Ostia, Libya to the city of Chicago; it can still be seen along the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field.

• Chicago renamed Seventh Street "Balbo Drive" and staged a parade in his honor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt invited him to lunch. The Sioux even honorarily adopted Balbo as "Chief Flying Eagle" Back home in Italy, he was promoted to Air Marshal. After this, the term Balbo entered common usage to describe any large formation of aircraft.