Benito Mussolini was a troubled kid who was born in 1883 in Verano di Costa, a town that is located approximately 40 miles southeast of Bologna. The local blacksmith's first child was Mussolini. Later in life, he proudly acknowledged his modest beginnings and frequently referred to himself as a "man of the people." The Mussolinis were undoubtedly poor, despite his claims to the contrary. His father was a blacksmith and a socialist journalist who was also the son of a National Guard lieutenant. His mother was a teacher. The three children of Mussolini's father frequently went without food since he spent most of his time in bars discussing politics and most of his money on his mistress. They shared two cramped rooms on the second story of a small, run-down palace.

Mussolini was sent by his parents to a harsh Catholic boarding school because he was prone to arrogance and violence. The new setting, however, did little to control his conduct. During his youth, Mussolini developed a reputation for being a bully and a fighter. He was expelled from a Christian boarding school when he was 10 years old for stabbing a classmate in the hand, this is one of the interesting facts about Benito Mussolini. His subsequent school also saw a stabbing incident. Additionally, he acknowledged stabbing a lover in the arm. At the age of 10, the young Mussolini was expelled from his first boarding school for stabbing a classmate. He stabbed another classmate at age 14 but just received a suspension.

The Cardinal's Mistress, a macabre work of historical fiction set in 17th-century Italy, was written by Mussolini in 1909. The book edition of the anti-religious newspaper serial, which was first published, proved extremely successful and was simultaneously translated into 10 different languages. Mussolini himself referred to it as "a horrible book" and "a story for seamstresses and scandal." The book mocked the Catholic Church with its foul language and licentious narrative.

Later, Mussolini would assert that the idea of The Cardinal's Mistress was based on actual events. Mussolini describes an extramarital relationship between a 17th-century cardinal of Trent and his lover, Claudia, in hastily written pages he churned out at night to earn some much-needed money. When the pope forbids the cardinal from getting married as a result of the affair, a series of narrative twists result in the death of the cardinal's niece (and only heir), the poisoning of his lover for rejecting the approaches of a cunning nobleman, and the cardinal's devastation and isolation.

It took nearly 20 years after the book's initial publication for it to be translated into English. By that point, Mussolini had renounced his former Socialist ideals in favor of an obnoxious, brawny, and frequently violent brand of Nationalism. After several years of escalating hostilities and threats, Mussolini's Italian Fascists overthrew the government in 1922, establishing totalitarian rule over the nation.

Italian World War I veteran and Socialist newspaper publisher Benito Mussolini splits from the Italian Socialists and founds the nationalist Fasci di Combattimento, which was given the name of the Italian peasant revolutionaries, or "Fighting Bands," of the 19th century. Mussolini's new right-wing group, commonly known as the Fascist Party, promoted Italian nationalism, wore black shirts as uniforms, and started a terrorist and intimidation campaign against its leftist rivals.

The fasces, which the members of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party of Italy selected as their insignia in 1919, inspired the party's name. The fasces are shown on the reverse of the Winged Liberty dime, which was produced in the United States from 1916 to 1945. With the establishment of the Fascist Revolutionary Party in 1915, Mussolini made his first overt political move. In 1919, the "Fascist Manifesto," which called for equal voting rights for men and women, abolishing the Senate (which was presided over by the nobility), and imposing hefty taxes on the wealthy, became well known.

However, in 1921 Mussolini changed the name of the organization to the National Fascist Party and rebuilt it, emphasizing the Italian national identity considerably more. Following the Fascist march on Rome in October 1922, King Emmanuel III, who had little confidence in Italy's legislative government, requested that Mussolini form a new administration. At first, Mussolini, the three-member Fascist cabinet's prime minister, worked with the Italian parliament, but with the help of his violent police force, he quickly established himself as the country's de facto ruler. A socialist backlash in 1924 was put down, and in January 1925, Mussolini has formally proclaimed Il Duce, or "The Leader," of the Fascist regime.

Mussolini's fascist movement placed a strong emphasis on nostalgia. Mussolini recycled a number of archaic images, like the stretched-arm salute and the perched eagle, which had been historically connected (whether properly or not) with Rome's greatness. Even the name fascist resembles the Roman fasces, a collection of bound sticks that served as a symbol of authority in ancient Rome. Fascism, however, was a term that had already been coined and was widely used by radical Italian groups as early as the 1890s by Mussolini.

Italy was governed by Benito Mussolini's fascist regime from 1922 until 1943. The Roman Empire, which the dictatorship turned to for inspiration and legitimacy, was central to its philosophy and images. Rome witnessed a significant alteration during this time as the dictatorship imposed its interpretation of antiquity on both new construction projects and archaeological ruins. Even though it frequently goes overlooked, this era's legacy can still be seen everywhere today and influences how the city looks.

Many of the well-known Roman structures were only dimly visible 150 years ago. The buildings were either still submerged beneath several meters of debris or had been incorporated into the city's medieval architecture, with temples becoming churches, theatre becoming fortifications, and colonnades becoming homes. After Rome was chosen as the nation's capital of a newly united Italy in 1870, much of this was undone. Massive efforts were made to unearth, examine, and present the artifacts of ancient Rome throughout this new era. As a result, monuments were excavated and purposefully set apart from the urban fabric, acting as archeological islands.

According to the released diaries of the Fascist dictator's lifelong mistress, Benito Mussolini was a rabid anti-Semite who boasted that his hatred for Jews preceded Adolf Hitler's and swore to "kill them all." This was considered one of the interesting facts about Benito Mussolini.

Despite some early Jewish support for Mussolini's fascist movement, historians claimed the diaries seemed credible and confirmed the idea that he was passionately anti-Semitic. However, they advised that because these are the journals of the dictator's lover and not Mussolini himself, they should be treated with extreme skepticism.

Il Duce, in contrast to the führer in Nazi Germany, did not treat Jews particularly harshly—up to a point. Italian Jews were accepted as citizens and permitted to join the Fascist Party up until 1938. An official memo from the era told the public that "the Fascist government has no intention whatsoever of initiating political, economic or moral actions against Jews."

But this all abruptly changed. The government started enacting anti-Jewish legislation in July 1938. A few months later, Mussolini declared that everybody who had been naturalized after January 1919 would lose their citizenship and that "foreign Jews" would be deported. It's unclear exactly what caused the transition; historians disagree on the extent to which Mussolini himself held anti-Semitic views. It is believed that Hitler likely believed that expelling Jews would be a simple way to win over his Nazi allies.

Mussolini served as an inspiration for Adolf Hitler. Hitler attempted to emulate Mussolini's attempt to seize power in Germany in 1923, but failed; the failed "Beer Hall Putsch" would land Hitler in jail for a while. When he came to power, Hitler inherited many of the dictatorial traits of his Italian predecessor, including the infamous salute.

Hitler's admiration was enjoyed by Mussolini. Hitler "had tears in his eyes" when the two of them first met, he claimed to his mistress Claretta Petacci in 1938. According to Petacci's notebooks, Mussolini stated that Hitler "in heart" was an old sentimentalist which was one of the interesting facts about Benito Mussolini.

Since the end of the war, several unexpected aspects of Adolf Hitler's personality have come to light. One of them is that he cries. Knowing that Hitler wept when he met Benito Mussolini does nothing to improve his reputation or legacy. It turns out that Hitler was somewhat of a Mussolini fanboy, basing his goals of achieving absolute power on Mussolini, which dates all the way back to the 1920s. Meeting Mussolini for Hitler was a major matter because of this, but also for other reasons. Additionally, Hitler loved Italian art, and some historians theorized that he intended to settle there after the war (via the Evening Standard).

Hitler and Mussolini had a strong anti-Semitic and racist ideology. Therefore, it appears likely that they had a lot to talk about when they first met in the late 1930s. Mussolini reportedly spoke to Hitler as "nice" and "an old sentimentalist at heart," according to Petacci.

Galeazzo Ciano was appointed ambassador to the Vatican and served in that capacity until July 1943, when he and other Grand Council members succeeded in forcing Mussolini from office. His son-in-law was never pardoned by Mussolini. Mussolini retook control of northern Italy at Hitler's orders (and with assistance from German forces). As soon as he regained control, he set out to exact revenge on friends and family who, in his opinion, had betrayed him. Galeazzo Ciano, his own son-in-law, was one of them.

When the new provisional administration started putting together charges of embezzlement against him, Ciano quickly left Rome for the north. Ciano was accused of treason after unintentionally running into the arms of fascist militants in northern Italy. His father-in-law ordered his execution on January 11, 1944; Mussolini had been put in charge of a German-installed puppet government. The brutally candid and sarcastic observations Ciano made about the wartime personalities in his diaries are regarded as an essential element of history.

Mussolini was only able to maintain his position of authority during the war's final years thanks to declining German power. He realized that time was of the essence. "I used to be a fascinating person seven years ago. I am essentially dead right now," he claimed in a 1945 interview. "I no longer identify as an actor. I believe I am the last of the observers. He ultimately fled, pretending to be a member of the Luftwaffe, to the Swiss border with Claretta Petacci and other people. On April 28, 1945 (two days before Hitler committed suicide), Communist partisans shot him and Petacci because they recognized him. His corpse was carried back to Milan, where it was displayed to the public by being hanged upside down and dragged through the streets.

Mussolini cherished addressing the populace directly as a populist leader. Thousands would gather in the congested square to listen to the charismatic orator preach about the glory of the country.

However, Mussolini wasn't the author of perhaps his most well-known proverb, "It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep." Barry Popik, an etymologist, claims that Mussolini used the proverb to honor a soldier who inscribed, "Better live one hour like a lion than a hundred years like a sheep," on a wall during the Battle of the Piave River in World War I. Even so, it is said that Tipu Sultan of Mysore in contemporary India said the adage: "I would rather live two days like a tiger than two hundred years like a sheep" as early as 1800.