Death of Benito Mussolini Milan, where he had been based, and tried to escape to the Swiss border. He and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were captured on 27 April by local partisans near the village of Dongo on Lake Como. Mussolini and Petacci were shot the following afternoon, two days before Adolf Hitler's suicide. The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Milan and left in a suburban square, the Piazzale Loreto, for a large angry crowd to insult and physically abuse. They were then hung upside down from a metal girder above a service station on the square. The bodies were beaten,
Dictator perpetuo Dictator perpetuo Dictator perpetuo (English: "dictator in perpetuity"), also called dictator in perpetuum, was the office held by Julius Caesar from 26 January or 15 February of the year 44 BCE until his death on 15 March. By abandoning the time restrictions usually applied in the case of the Roman "dictatura", it elevated Caesar's dictatorship into the monarchical sphere. Julius Caesar held the dictator position for only eleven days in 49 BCE (holding elections either as "dictator Comit. habend." or as "dictator rei gerundae causa") and again for the year 48/47 BCE. In 46 BCE, he was elected dictator for