World War I (1914–18) gave a huge boost to Milan’s heavy industry, but after the war Milan entered into a period of instability. Revolution threatened in 1920 as workers organized strikes and occupations in some 300 factories of the city. Yet at the same time there was strong Milanese opposition to socialism; in March 1919, the formation of militant right-wing groups in the city marked the dawn of fascism. Fascism’s rise at a national level was mirrored in Milan in August 1922, when black-shirted squads occupied the town hall and effectively ended local democracy. Fascism never won over the Milanese working classes, but it did enjoy considerable support among the city’s administrative, commercial, and business classes.

After 1943, during World War II (1939–45), the city was occupied by the Germans, and Milan became the capital of the resistance. The city was liberated by Italian partisans before the Allies arrived in April 1945. Benito Mussolini’s dead body was famously displayed in Piazzale Loreto in Milan in the same month.

As the subsequent Cold War set in, the political left remained strong, but the Christian Democrats (Partito della Democrazia Cristiana; DC) dominated local politics until the early 1960s. The strength of the left then forced the DC into a centre-left alliance. Successive administrations struggled to deal with massive social problems caused in part by an economic boom (the “economic miracle”), as thousands of immigrants arrived in the city and uncontrolled urban growth took place. In 1968 Milan was at the centre of Italy’s student movement.

In 1969 a bombing in a bank in Milan’s city centre killed more than a dozen people. This so-called Piazza Fontana massacre, at first blamed on anarchists but later determined to be the work of neofascists, hailed the beginning of a difficult period marked by acts of terrorism. The terrorism was part of a “strategy of tension” developed by neofascists who, through the creation of chaos, aimed to force the state into repressive measures against the left. The 1970s also were dominated by terrorism, as well as by economic depression.

A second economic boom arrived in the 1980s, when the city was governed by a succession of mayors from the Italian Socialist Party and under the overall control of Bettino Craxi, the Milanese prime minister of Italy. Craxi’s party was notable for its modernizing style and the way it embraced the new, postindustrial economy. However, in 1992 a massive level of institutionalized corruption was revealed as a series of Milanese magistrates, including Antonio Di Pietro, arrested numerous politicians and businessmen on charges of taking or giving bribes. Milan, with its image as the “moral capital” of Italy in tatters, became known as Tangentopoli (“Bribesville”). Within two years, the “clean hands” investigations in Milan led to the dissolution of the whole political system born out of the Cold War. The Socialists all but ceased to exist, and the DC split into many smaller parts.

The corruption scandals of the 1990s allowed the Northern League (Lega Nord), a new federalist and fiscal-reform party, to make an impact in Milan, but its main power base remained rural and provincial. More popular in the city was the new conservative political party, Forza Italia (FI; loosely translatable as “Go Italy”), formed by the Milanese tycoon Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi had become wealthy through building speculation in Milan; he also had purchased the AC Milan football team in the early 1980s. His masterstroke, however, had been the creation and promotion of a series of hugely successful television and advertising companies. His Milanese base helped him to form FI, which won the national elections in 1994. Berlusconi served as prime minister of Italy for less than a year before a corruption investigation and political disputes led to his resignation. Nevertheless, he was reelected to the post in 2001 and 2008, the latter time at the helm of a new centre-right party, the People of Freedom (Popolo della Libertà).

Milan entered the 21st century with a dynamic economy that had transformed itself into a postindustrial powerhouse, thanks to the city’s central market location, a capable commercial and financial class, and the relatively cheap labour of hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Many areas within the city were redeveloped and revitalized, and Milan could justly claim to be a world capital of fashion, design, finance, business services, and media and publishing.