The Years of Lead are sometimes considered to have begun with the 1968 movement in Italy and the Hot Autumn strikes starting in 1969;[31] the death of the policeman Antonio Annarumma in November 1969;[32] the Piazza Fontana bombing in December of that year, which killed 17 and was perpetrated by right-wing terrorists in Milan; and the death shortly after of anarchist worker Giuseppe Pinelli while in police custody under suspicion of being responsible for the attack, which he was ultimately deemed as not having committed.

[33] A far-left group, the Red Brigades, eventually became notorious as a terrorist organization during the period; in 1978, they kidnapped and assassinated former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro.

Another major crime associated with the Italian Years of Lead was the 1980 bombing of the Bologna railway station, which killed 85 people and for which several members of the far-right, neo-fascist terrorist group known as the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari were convicted.

From the early 1960s, as Italy was enjoying its so-called economic miracle, far left and far right movements were gradually radicalized by the fading of revolutionary ideals and by the failure of the major right- and left-wing parties to influence mainstream politics.

Likewise, the Italian Communist Party's inability to ignite revolution in Italy or even win national elections, and its insertion into mainstream politics led to the disillusionment of many left wing activists who evolved towards more extreme movements.

The assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978 ended the strategy of historic compromise between the DC and the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

Local police arrested 80 or so suspects from left-wing groups, including Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist initially blamed for the bombing, and Pietro Valpreda.

[33][14] In 1975, Calabresi and other police officials were acquitted by judge Gerardo D'Ambrosio who decided that Pinelli's fall from a window had been caused by his being taken ill and losing his balance.

Then, two neo-fascists, Franco Freda (resident in Padua) and Giovanni Ventura, were arrested and accused of being the organizers of the massacre; in 1987 they were acquitted by the Supreme Court for lack of evidence.

[51] The Red Brigades were founded in August 1970 by Renato Curcio and Margherita (Mara) Cagol, who had met as students at the University of Trento and later married,[33] and Alberto Franceschini.

[33] Another group of militants came from the Sit-Siemens factories in Milan; these were Mario Moretti, a union official, Corrado Alunni, who would leave the Red Brigades to found another organization "fighter", and Alfredo Buonavita, a blue-collar worker.

[33] The first action of the RB was burning the car of Giuseppe Leoni (a leader of Sit-Siemens company in Milan) on 17 September 1970, in the context of the labour unrest within the factory.

In December, a neo-fascist coup, dubbed the Golpe Borghese, was planned by young far-right fanatics, main veterans of Italian Social Republic, and supported by members of the Corpo Forestale dello Stato, along with right-aligned entrepreneurs and industrialists.

[52] The Red Brigades considered Gruppo XXII Ottobre its predecessor and, in April 1974, they kidnapped Judge Mario Sossi in a failed attempt at freeing the jailed members.

Casson's investigation revealed that the right-wing organization Ordine Nuovo had collaborated with the Italian Military Secret Service, SID (Servizio Informazioni Difesa).

"[57][58] A 16 April 1973 arson attack by members of Potere Operaio on the house of neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) militant Mario Mattei in Primavalle, Rome, resulted in his two sons, aged 22 and 8, being burned alive.

On 16 November 2010, the Court of Brescia acquitted the defendants: Francesco Delfino (a Carabiniere), Carlo Maria Maggi, Pino Rauti, Maurizio Tramonte, and Delfo Zorzi (members of the Ordine Nuovo neo-fascist group).

[14] Count Edgardo Sogno said in his memoirs that in July 1974, he visited the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief in Rome to inform him of preparations for a coup.

[14] In 1974, some leaders of the Red Brigades, including Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini, were arrested, but new leadership continued the war against the Italian right-wing establishment with increased fervour.

[14] On 13 March, a young militant of Italian Social Movement (MSI) Sergio Ramelli was assaulted in Milan by a group of Avanguardia Operaia and wounded in the head with wrenches (aka Hazet 36).

[33] On 15 December, in Sesto San Giovanni (a town near Milan), vice chief Vittorio Padovani and Marshal Sergio Bazzega were killed by young extremist Walter Alasia.

Aldo Moro was a left-leaning Christian Democrat who served several times as prime minister; before his murder, he had been trying to include the Italian Communist Party (PCI), headed by Enrico Berlinguer, in the government through a deal called the Historic Compromise.

PCI was, at the time, the largest communist party in Western Europe; mainly because of its non-extremist and pragmatic stance, its growing independence from Moscow and its eurocommunist doctrine.

The Red Brigades were fiercely opposed by the Communist Party and trade unions: some left-wing politicians used the expression "comrades who do wrong" (Compagni che sbagliano).

[14] On 12 February, in Rome, at the "La Sapienza" University, Vittorio Bachelet, vice-president of the High Council of the Judiciary and former president of the Roman Catholic association Azione Cattolica, was killed by the Red Brigades.

This was found to be a neo-fascist bombing, mainly organized by the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari: Francesca Mambro and Valerio Fioravanti were sentenced to life imprisonment.

[14] On 17 December, James L. Dozier, an American general and the deputy commander of NATO's South European forces based in Verona, was kidnapped by Red Brigades.

[95] On February 18, 1994, the Florence court absolved MSI member of Parliament Massimo Abbatangelo from the massacre charge, but ruled him guilty of giving the explosive to Misso in the spring of 1984.

Among the arrested were Giorgio Pietrostefani, a founding member of the Lotta Continua group who was convicted of the murder of Milan police commissioner Luigi Calabresi.

The act was announced on 21 April 1985, at the 65th Congress of the Human Rights League (Ligue des droits de l'homme, LDH), stating of Italian criminals who had given up their violent pasts and had fled to France would be protected from extradition to Italy: Italian refugees ... who took part in terrorist action before 1981 ... have broken links with the infernal machine in which they participated, have begun a second phase of their lives, have integrated into French society ...