June 2000.

Berlusconi’s campaign for re-election in 2001 receives an important boost when an Italian court dismisses allegations he bribed a judge 10 years earlier to win a takeover battle to buy Mondadori, one of the country’s largest publishing houses. It’s only one chapter in a 20-year legal odyssey. In 2011, judges will reverse previous acquittals on appeal, and order Berlusconi’s Fininvest holding company to pay $913 million in damages to a rival media company that had lost out in the Mondadori buy-out. (Paolo Bona/Reuters)