Benito Mussolini

Italian dictator and former head of state; he held the title of “Il Duce” (English: The Leader) during his time of rule over Italy. He came into power in 1923 after he and his group of Blackshirt paramilitaries under the National Fascist Party initiated a coup in what became known as the March of Rome, leading to a bloodless transfer of power by the then-king of the Kingdom of Italy to Mussolini. Ruling his country over a totalitarian fascist dictatorship, he pursued an alliance with Nazi Germany and fought in World War 2 with the Axis Powers, but was soon forced to step down by the Italian King after the Allied Forces invaded the Italian mainland, later being rescued by German paratroopers and placed as the head of the new Italian Social Republic, a Nazi puppet regime that fought the Italian resistance and the Kingdom of Italy (which by now was affiliated with the Allies after Mussolini was forced to step down) during the Italian Civil War. He was later killed in 1945 by a communist partisan, and his dead body was publicly hanged upside down along with a few other notable fascists.