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July 29, 1883 - Benito Mussolini

His trajectory from socialist journalist to architect of Italian fascism traces one of the twentieth century's most consequential political reinventions. The movement he founded in 1919 became a template for authoritarian nationalist politics across Europe, and his two decades in power reshaped Italy through suppression of political opposition, imperial warfare in Africa and the Balkans, and eventual alliance with Nazi Germany. The machinery of the fascist state — the party apparatus, the cult of leadership, the subordination of institutions to ideological ends — drew on his particular skill at channeling postwar disillusionment into mass political energy.

From Wikipedia

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian politician, journalist, and dictator who led the Kingdom of Italy as a fascist dictatorship from 1922 until his overthrow in 1943. Known under his rule as Il Duce, he founded fascism in 1919 with the creation of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, which became the National Fascist Party (PNF) in 1921. Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister of Italy after the March on Rome in 1922, establishing a totalitarian fascist dictatorship. He oversaw Italy's participation in World War II as a prominent member of the Axis Powers, and was executed by the Italian resistance near the end of the war in 1945.

Mussolini was originally a radical socialist journalist at Avanti!. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but was expelled for advocating military intervention in World War I. In 1914, Mussolini founded a newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, and served in the Royal Italian Army until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. He eventually denounced the PSI, his views pivoting to focus on Italian nationalism, and founded the fascist movement, which opposed egalitarianism, and class conflict, and instead advocated "revolutionary nationalism" transcending class lines. In 1922, following the March on Rome, he was appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III. After removing opposition through his secret police and outlawing labour strikes, Mussolini consolidated power through laws, and illegal means, that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship.

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