workingclasshistory:

On this day, 7 April 1926, Violet Gibson, a 49-year-old Irish aristocrat and peace activist attempted to assassinate Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, in Rome.
She had armed herself with a pistol wrapped in a shawl, and a rock to break his car window if needed. As she fired at his head, Mussolini moved, meaning that the bullet hit his nose, travelling through both nostrils. She tried to fire again but the gun misfired.
She was violently beaten and almost killed by an angry mob, until she was arrested by police. Gibson endeavoured to obtain release by convincing doctors she was mad.
While her conversations and correspondence were lucid and rational, her absence of children was interpreted as psychologically abnormal. Along with a previous suicide attempt, and a violent reaction she had to a fascist inmate, she was deemed “insane”.
She was deported to Britain, where she spent the rest of her life in a mental hospital. When she died, no one attended her funeral.
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