Word: benito
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...February day in 1937, Benito Mussolini sent a pickax crashing into the pavement of the Piazza Bocca della Verità to break ground for Rome's first subway. A world war and his own inglorious death interrupted the work Mussolini began. When these greater events were not threatening its progress, Italy's archaeologists poked into the subway excavation and held up the work, to make sure that the tunnelers were not destroying any buried relics of antiquity. But somehow, despite all handicaps, Rome's subway got built. Last week, after 18 years and $20 million...
...hulking 6 ft. 4 in. when World War I broke out. But though twice wounded and twice decorated, he found himself among Italy's millions of jobless at war's end. When the government called for volunteers to "pacify" Libya, Graziani rejoined the army. A year later Benito Mussolini, the new Fascist leader, took over, and Graziani was on his way to becoming a hero again...
...Benito Mussolini was called to office as Head of the Government of Italy. "Excuse my appearance," the new boss told King Victor Emmanuel, "but I come from the battlefield." Mussolini referred to his Fascist Party black shirt, not the striped pants ("too long and tight") or the frock coat ("sleeves . . . too short") which he had borrowed from his pals. As for his "battlefield," this, too. was the property of friends: it was they who had made the historic "March on Rome" the preceding day, while Leader Mussolini stayed snug in the office of his Socialist newspaper, Il Popolo...
Birth of a Legend. "What a character!" sighed his wife Rachele, when she heard of her Benito's sudden rise to power. Most Italians echoed her words, wondered what sort of oddity their new ruler was. They knew he was the son of a Romagna blacksmith and had come up the hard way, going to jail for his political activities, suffering poverty in Switzerland. They knew little of his real character-e.g., that he could be bullied by anyone who took the trouble. They knew still less of his chronic ailments (syphilis, stomach ulcers) and his antipathy...
Word from Portugal. Gruff, heavy-spending Achille Lauro, multimillionaire owner of a huge merchant shipping fleet, staunch friend of the late Benito Mussolini and now the popular mayor of Naples, was the party's nominal head and principal bankroller (about $3,000,000 in contributions). Ex-Professor (of law) Alfredo Covelli, an expert parliamentarian and a good organizer, was secretary-general and real leader of the Monarchists...