Rome's La Sapienza University is organising a series of events for the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the student protest at the faculty of architecture in Valle Giulia from February 29 to 19 March.

The student demonstrations and clashes with police on 1 March 1968 were important in the development of events which led to the explosion of the national and international student movements that marked 1968 as a year of social change and protest.

The student protest at Valle Giulia on 1 March 1968 was not the first in its kind in Italy - indeed some had taken place in the last months of 1967 in northern Italy - but it became the turning point for the student movement, which up until then had been relatively pacific.

The day in question came the day after the university dean brought in the police and forcibly ousted the students following a month of student occupation of the university. In protest, the students held a march the day after, on 1 March 1968, from Piazza di Spagna to Valle Giulia with the aim of recapturing the faculty of architecture. Waiting for them there were the police, and what ensued was described by many as