Word: held
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Formosa, the Nationalists at last held a good defensive position. Chiang had an estimated 300,000 troops on the island, small air and naval forces to garrison and guard it, and the Communists lacked an air force and navy to help them hurdle the moat that surrounds the island. But Chiang could not count on the loyalty of Formosa's people, disgusted by Nationalist carpetbaggers who rushed to Formosa after the war's end. Probably the greatest threat facing the Nationalists on Formosa was Red fifth-column tactics within the island stronghold...
...score dead. Communist agitators were among the land-grabbing peasants; but most were moved by a genuine, desperate need. Italy, though greatly recovered under Marshall Plan aid, was still far from raising enough food for her teeming, fast-breeding folk. Yet about 4,000,000 acres of land, held by a handful of wealthy owners, still lay idle or were worked by antiquated methods...
...people hold 7,400 acres of hard, rocky land, which means an average of little more than an acre for each-barely enough to stave off starvation. Some 4,000 acres, including fine, fertile land by the nearby seashore, are owned by Marquis Anselmo Berlingieri, whose family has held them for centuries. Most of Berlingieri's land is uncultivated; he finds it more profitable to graze his sheep on it, and the bitter townsfolk say that the sheep of Melissa are better fed than...
...Corradi doesn't despise the company of poor peasants. In fact, he is always around. I planted a fig tree here one day. I have held this land for 15 years, and never a tree on it. I want a tree. But Corradi rushed up shouting, 'Who planted this fig tree?' He made me cut it down...
Premier de Gasperi held one of his rare press conferences, gave out reassuring figures showing Italy's rising food production. He hopefully pointed to ECA projects in Italy which are trying to educate the peasants to use their land to better purposes. At La Sila, not far from Melissa, the Italian government, with ECA help, is spending 15 billion lire ($24 million) on a project to improve the land, plans to settle 20,000 peasant families there. They will be instructed in crop rotation and other modern agricultural methods, get new tools and fertilizers. The U.S. has earmarked about...