Benito Mussolini was born July 29, 1883 near Predappio, Italy. He lived with his family in a small cottage attached to the school where his mother taught. His mother was named Rosa Maltoni. His father was a blacksmith named Alessandro Mussolini. He had a brother named Arnaldo, and a sister named Edvige.
As a child, Benito was very strong willed, unruly, and violent. He was also mostly a loner. He actually preferred reading to playing with other children. His parents thought he would do better at a boarding school so, at age 9, he was sent to Salesian School. He hated it there and was as violent as ever. He threw an inkpot at a teacher and stabbed a child, just to name a couple of his violent outbursts. His parents then sent him to Royal Normal School, a secular school. He did much better there for it was less strict. He also made some progress in his academic skills there. In 1901, he graduated. He became interested in politics there so became an apprentice.
In 1902, Mussolini qualified as a teacher. Later he left Italy for Switzerland to work odd jobs and become a political activist. In 1910, he got married to a lady named Rachele. That same year they had a child named Edda. In 1911, he got arrested for protesting the Libyan war. Also that year he became editor of the Avanti! newspaper. Three years later he started his own newspaper called: Il Popolo d' Italia.
Mussolini had another child named Vittorio and went off to fight in World War I. It is said he also had three other children, but their names and date of birth are unmentioned. In 1917, he was wounded in a training exercise so returned home. Mussolini was the founder and leader of Italian fascism, an authoritarian political movement developed in Italy and other European countries as a reaction to social changes brought by World War I and the spread of socialism and communism.
Then King Victor Emmanuel III offered Mussolini a job as a figurehead monarch of Italy. Instead, Mussolini becomes prime minister after the March on Rome, an event staged by the blackshirts, which lead Mussolini to power. In 1925, Mussolini took leadership, as dictator, from the weak coalition government. He did this by earning trust by building new roads, houses, and factories. One of his many boasts was he made Italian trains run on time. In 1928, the Italian government was completely abolished. People had to obey Il Duce, Mussolini's nickname, meaning the leader, or be put in jail or, worse yet, be killed.
Mussolini formed an alliance with Hitler in 1937. Two years later, World War II broke out, and Mussolini signed the Pact of Steel, a military alliance with Hitler. There were three dictators of World War II: Mussolini of Italy, Hitler of Germany, and Tojo of Japan. Mussolini mainly joined World War II because he was jealous of all the land Hitler and Germany were getting. However, Mussolini's old-fashioned army was not at all prepared, so it basically unsuccessful in attacking countries.
In 1943, Mussolini was dismissed by King Victor Emmanuel III then arrested. After that, King Victor made peace with the Allies. September twelfth the Germans rescued him and made him head of a puppet government, or a government with no power. On April 28, 1945, Mussolini, the great Italian dictator, was captured by partisans, shot, and hung in a public square in Milan, Italy.
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