Learn Italian: I soldati occupano la città. - The soldiers occupy the city.

Occupano is in the present tense. To change this regular -are verb to the third-person plural of the passato remoto (the historical past), you drop the -are and add -arono. The sentence becomes I soldati occuparono la città (The soldiers occupied the city).

Where does the spoken stress fall on the verb occupano?

The stress falls on the first syllable: òc-cu-pa-no. In the present tense, the third-person plural (-ano) usually pulls the stress back to the third-to-last syllable. This often surprises learners because the infinitive occupare has the stress on the second-to-last syllable (oc-cu-pà-re).

Why is there an accent mark on the end of città?

The accent mark indicates that the spoken stress falls heavily on the final vowel. A helpful rule to remember is that Italian nouns ending in an accented vowel are invariable, meaning they do not change their ending in the plural. If the soldiers occupied multiple cities, the word would remain exactly the same: le città.