Benito Mussolini

Born in 1883, Mussolini was the leader of the fascist movement in Italy who became embodiment of fascism. His father was a blacksmith and a socialist, his mother a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. He attended a priest-run boarding academy at age nine, and because of his humble origins, had to sit at a table with other disadvantaged students. He got a teaching certificate, but could not control the classroom. At age 19, he went to Switzerland where he worked as a laborer, then as a bricklayer, at which time he became active in the labor union.

The manifesto of the Fascist movement was written and signed by 54 members in March 1919, but within a couple of years, the Fascist movement, led by Mussolini, had more than 2,000 chapters. In 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III named him prime minister. What followed, a five-hour march to Rome, had the same effect as...