Benito Mussolini

Italian politician, leader of the fascist movement. He was born on July 29, 1883. In his youth, a journalist associated with socialist magazines, in 1914 he founded the daily "Popolo d'italia". He fought on the fronts of World War I. He also belonged to the Italian Socialist Party. In 1919 in Milan he founded the Fascio di Combattimento, i.e. fight relationship. The word fascio comes from the Roman Empire in which fasces it was a bundle of rods tied with an ax in the center, symbolizing power. In turn, in 1921 he founded the National Fascist Party. As a result of the march on Rome, i.e. the coup d'état organized in October 1922, he took power in the country and the king appointed him prime minister, while in 1925 a fascist dictatorship was introduced in Italy. On February 11, 1929, the Lateran Treaties governing relations with the Church were signed.

In 1936, Italy, ruled by Mussolini, completed the conquest of Ethiopia, while in 1939 Albania was taken. During World War II, Mussolini was the closest ally of Adolf Hitler, with whom he had established cooperation three years earlier. On June 10, 1940, he decided that Italy would enter the war on the side of Germany and declared war on France and Great Britain.

In July 1943, after the Allies had landed in Sicily, the Great Fascist Council met for the first time since the declaration of war to the Allies. The current unfavorable situation was discussed and remedial steps were taken. Unexpectedly even for the Allies, on the initiative of its chairman Dino Grandi, the Council decided to remove Mussolini from the post of Prime Minister, he was removed from power and Benito was arrested on 25 July. After being released by the German commandos, he became the leader of the puppet state in the north of the Apennine Peninsula - the Italian Social Republic. At the end of the war, he was captured by partisans along with his mistress Clara Petacci when they tried to flee to Switzerland. On April 28, 1945, they were both shot.