I am president of the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) this year and next, and I am about to leave for the Biennial IBBY Congress in Trieste. The only thing I knew about Trieste was that James Joyce had lived there, but I have learned that it is a place with a complicated history.

When I started poking around the Library of Congress, I found some wonderful images which capture its complex roots in the midst of geopolitical conflicts.

In a 1916 movie poster, "the woman symbolizes the city of Trieste, historically part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, during World War I, its main point of access to the sea. The Italian irredentist movement had been campaigning for the city's annexation since at least the last two decades of the 19th century. At the end of the war, in November 1918, the Royal Italian Army entered Trieste to the applause of the part of the population that favored the Italian cause. The army declared its seizure of the city and established a curfew. Annexation by Italy of Trieste and the surrounding region of Venezia Giulia was politically inevitable, but it was opposed by the newly-established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which also wanted to annex the city and its hinterland. The status of Trieste as an Italian city was affirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo. Annexation poisoned relations between the Italian and the Slovene populations, which at times boiled over into armed combat."

A 1923 stereoscopic image refers to Trieste as "the prize taken by Italy from Austria" and recounts the World War I-era conflict that led to its Italian status.

Into the 20th century, Trieste continued to be a cultural melange and a political hot potato, as an editorial cartoon demonstrates: 

"At the end of World War II, both Italy and Yugoslavia claimed the port city of Trieste. In what was perhaps the first military offensive of the Cold War, Tito and his partisans invaded the area in March 1945. A peace treaty in 1947 established Trieste and the surrounding area as a Free Territory, but it was eventually divided between Yugoslavia and Italy."

This has me thinking a lot about places that have seen a lot of changes in governance -- more locally, the Alabama city of Mobile used to even display its six historical flags on its municipal flag. 

And there is our northeastern state line, which follows the Tennessee River against the states of Georgia and Tennessee, the capriciousness of which has led to water claims on the part of Georgia.

Can you think of any other areas that have "changed hands" or where the border has been so contentious over time?