1. Named After a Mexican President
Despite becoming the ultimate icon of right-wing nationalism, Mussolini was actually named after a famous leftist revolutionary. His father, a passionate socialist and blacksmith, named his son Benito in honor of Benito Juárez, the reformist President of Mexico. His middle names, Amilcare and Andrea, were given in honor of Italian socialist leaders Amilcare Cipriani and Andrea Costa.
2. He Wrote a Trashy Romance Novel
Long before he was drafting fascist manifestos, Mussolini tried his hand at writing popular fiction. In 1909, he published a lurid, anti-clerical romance novel titled The Cardinal’s Mistress (translated from Claudia Particella, l’amante del cardinale). The scandalous book, which was highly critical of the Catholic Church, was serialized in a socialist newspaper and surprisingly became a massive, widely read hit in Italy.
3. He Was a Serial Schoolyard Stabber
Mussolini’s violent, aggressive tendencies manifested very early in his childhood. As a deeply rebellious and hot-tempered student, he was completely unmanageable. He was expelled from his first strict Catholic boarding school at the age of 10 for stabbing a fellow classmate in the hand with a penknife. Astonishingly, he stabbed another student at his next school and famously threw an inkpot at a teacher.
4. The “Trains Ran on Time” Myth
One of the most persistent historical myths regarding Mussolini’s dictatorship is that, despite his brutality, he at least “made the trains run on time.” This was entirely a product of highly controlled fascist propaganda. The Italian railway system was deeply flawed, constantly delayed, and suffered massive infrastructural issues throughout his entire regime; the press was simply strictly forbidden from reporting on any train delays.
5. Shot by an Irish Aristocrat
In April 1926, Mussolini survived a bizarre and incredibly close assassination attempt. While walking through a piazza in Rome, an Irish aristocrat named Violet Gibson stepped out of the crowd, drew a revolver, and fired directly at his head. Mussolini miraculously moved his head at the exact second she pulled the trigger, and the bullet merely grazed his nose. He simply put a bandage over the wound and continued his parade later that same day.
6. The March on Rome Was a Train Ride
Fascist mythology heavily pushed the narrative that Mussolini heroically marched on Rome on horseback, leading 30,000 Blackshirts to violently seize power from the government in 1922. In reality, the “March on Rome” was mostly a loud, intimidating parade. The Italian King surrendered power out of fear of a civil war, and Mussolini comfortably traveled to Rome in a luxury sleeper train to officially accept the position of Prime Minister.
7. He Created the Independent Vatican City
Despite spending his youth as a fierce, vocal atheist who wrote highly critical articles about the Catholic Church, Mussolini realized he needed the Pope’s support to control the deeply religious Italian population. In 1929, he signed the historic Lateran Treaty. This agreement officially recognized the Pope’s absolute sovereignty over a tiny patch of land in Rome, legally creating the independent microstate of Vatican City.
8. An Honorary British Knight
Before his imperialistic conquests in Africa and his alliance with Adolf Hitler made him a global pariah, Mussolini was actually highly respected by several Western governments who saw him as a strong bulwark against communism. In 1923, King George V of the United Kingdom awarded the Italian dictator the prestigious Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. The knighthood was quietly and swiftly revoked in 1940 when Italy declared war on Britain.
9. Banning the Handshake
Mussolini was obsessed with completely reshaping Italian culture to fit his militaristic ideals, which included changing how people greeted each other. He officially banned the traditional handshake, declaring it unsanitary, bourgeois, and fundamentally “un-Roman.” Instead, he legally mandated that all citizens must greet each other using the stiff-armed Roman salute, an ancient gesture that the Nazis later entirely co-opted.
10. He Initially Despised Adolf Hitler
While the Axis alliance defined World War II, Mussolini’s initial opinion of Hitler was incredibly low. When the two dictators first met in Venice in 1934, Mussolini was unimpressed by the German leader, privately describing him as a “silly little monkey” and a “mad little clown.” It was only after international sanctions isolated Italy following its brutal invasion of Ethiopia that Mussolini begrudgingly aligned himself with the rising power of Nazi Germany.
11. He Was Originally a Hardline Socialist
It is highly ironic that the man who invented right-wing fascism began his political career as a radical left-wing socialist. As a young man, Mussolini was one of the most prominent socialist journalists in Italy and the editor of the Socialist Party’s official newspaper. He was expelled from the party in 1914 because he violently broke from their pacifist stance, actively demanding that Italy enter World War I.
12. Refusing Translators Out of Pride
Mussolini was incredibly arrogant regarding his own intellect and considered himself a brilliant linguist, speaking French and German. However, his German was not nearly as fluent as he believed. During highly critical strategic meetings with Adolf Hitler, Mussolini outright refused to use a translator out of sheer pride. This led to massive, disastrous miscommunications regarding military timelines and troop deployments.
13. Deeply Superstitious and Fearful of the Occult
Despite his projection of absolute, unshakeable strength, “Il Duce” was paralyzed by bizarre superstitions. He was terrified of the “malocchio” (the evil eye) and would completely avoid people he believed were cursed or carried bad luck. He also possessed a severe phobia of open umbrellas indoors and absolutely refused to sleep in a bed that was made with the sheets folded back in a specific, “funerary” manner.
14. Surviving World War I Shrapnel
Before he was a politician, Mussolini served as a sharpshooter (Bersaglieri) in the Italian Army during World War I. His military career ended abruptly in 1917 during a training exercise when a mortar bomb accidentally exploded inside his trench. He survived the blast but was severely wounded, requiring doctors to surgically remove over 40 pieces of jagged metal shrapnel from his body.
15. Overthrown by His Own Council
Mussolini’s initial downfall did not come from Allied troops or a civilian uprising, but from his own highest-ranking loyalists. In July 1943, with the Allies successfully invading Sicily and the Italian military completely collapsing, the Fascist Grand Council secretly convened. In a stunning mutiny, they voted to strip Mussolini of all his powers. He was arrested by the King’s guards the very next day, entirely shocked that his own inner circle had betrayed him.
