On this day - 7 April

On April 7th 1926, the Italian Prime Minister Mussolini was shot in the nose in an assassination attempt carried out by Violet Gibson. Mussolini had been delivering a speech at a surgical congress in Rome and the attack took place on leaving. Mussolini considered his wound minor and carried on with his day and duties with a bandage across his nose. This assassination attempt increased the popular support for Mussolini in Italy.

Violet Gibson was Irish and the daughter of a prominent Irish politician and lawyer. She had long suffered with her mental health and was deported from Italy to the UK following this incident. She was deemed to have been unwell at the time of the attack and was confined to a psychiatric hospital for the rest of her life.

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Yamato was one of the largest battleships ever created. She was part of the Japanese navy. By 1945, the Japanese navy had been greatly damaged and was struggling with fuel shortages. Yamoto was sent out to protect Okinawa. The idea was the ship would fight until destroyed. On April 7th 1945, the battleship was sunk.

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