April 7, 1926: The Attempted Assassination of Benito Mussolini

April 7, 1926: An attempt is made to assassinate Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy.

Violet Gibson was born in 1876 in Dublin, Ireland. She was the daughter of Edward Gibson, the 1st Baron Asbourne, and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1885 to 1905. She fell victim to mental illness, having a nervous breakdown in 1922, the year that Mussolini and his Fascist thugs marched on Rome and took control of the Italian government. She was committed to a psychiatric institution for 2 years. Mussolini was not. She attempted suicide in Rome in 1925.

She was still in Rome on April 7, 1926, when she saw Mussolini walking among the crowd in the Piazza del Campidoglio, after leaving an assembly of the International Congress of Surgeons, to whom he had delivered a speech on modern medicine. Gibson pulled a Modèle 1892 revolver, loaded with 8-millimeter bullets, roughly equivalent to .32 caliber, and fired.

Mussolini turned his head at just the right moment -- for him -- and the shot only grazed his nose. Gibson tried a 2nd shot, but her gun misfired. Gibson was almost lynched on the spot by an angry mob, but police intervened, and took her away for questioning. Mussolini dismissed his injury as "a mere trifle."

As she didn't hold Irish citizenship, due to her Unionist views, she was deported to Britain, after being released without charge at the request of Mussolini, an act for which he received the thanks of the British government.

The assassination attempt backfired, triggering a wave of popular support for Mussolini, resulting in the passage of pro-Fascist legislation which helped consolidate his control of Italy. Gibson spent the rest of her life in a psychiatric hospital, and died in 1956, at age 79.

Between November 4, 1925 and October 31, 1926, a span of one year, Mussolini faced 4 assassination attempts. Gibson's was by far the closest call. After 1926, new laws made making such an attempt considerably harder. Mussolini remained in power until 1943, and was executed in 1945.

*

April 7, 1926 was a Wednesday. Baseball was in Spring Training, with Opening Day 6 days away. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The Stanley Cup had been awarded the day before, as the Montreal Maroons beat the Victoria Cougars, 2-0 at the Montreal Forum, to win the Finals, 3 games to 1. So there were no scores on this historic day.