Benito Mussolini
World Leader
Italian dictator who came to power after his successful March on Rome in 1922. He threw out his country's constitution in 1925 in favor of a dictatorship and he allied with Hitler during WWII. After the Allies invaded Italy, he was captured while trying to escape north in 1945 and hanged by Italian partisans in Milan.
To avoid conscription, he moved to Switzerland in 1902 and worked as a stonemason.
He is credited with founding Italian Fascism. He destroyed political opposition through his secret police, outlawed labor strikes, and consolidated his power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship.
His father, Alessandro Mussolini, was an Italian revolutionary socialist and blacksmith by profession.
As a dictator, he has often been compared to Joseph Stalin.