Benito Mussolini Biography

Political Leader / World War II Figure

Known as "Il Duce" -- the Leader -- Mussolini was the Fascist dictator of Italy during World War II. Mussolini grew active in Italian politics in the first decade of the 1900s. He then spent time in exile in Switzerland and Austria, where he worked writing and editing socialist newspapers. He returned to Italy after serving in World War I and gained power and notoriety as a revolutionary nationalist. He founded the Fascist Party in 1919, used force and intimidation against political opponents and took power in 1922. Nicknamed Il Duce, Mussolini created a dictatorship and dissolved the parliament. Yet for many years he was popular as he expanded government services and public works. In the 1930s Italy invaded Ethiopia and Albania and in 1939 Mussolini promised an alliance with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Italy's failures in the war led to Mussolini being removed from government, and when the war ended he was arrested, tried and executed.

Other leaders of World War II: Britain's Winston Churchill, America's Franklin Roosevelt and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin.