The Woman Who Shot Mussolini

Mussolini After Violet Gibson Attempted to Assassinate Him

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On April 7th 1926,  Violet Gibson, a 49-year-old Anglo-Irish woman, stepped out of a crowd in the Piazza del Campidoglio and fired a shot at Benito Mussolini. The bullet grazed his nose. She fired a second shot, but the gun jammed. At that point her attempt to assassinate Italy's dictator came to an abrupt end.   

Gibson was imprisoned in Italy for a year and a half before a deal was agreed between Mussolini and the British government, the result of which led to her being locked up in an asylum in Northampton for the rest of her life. She died in 1956. 

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