On April 26, 1945, Benito Mussolini – Italy's fascist 'Il Duce' during WWII – was shot and killed by communist partisans in northern Italy. The day before, on April 25, Mussolini had finally seen the writing on the wall – Nazi surrender to Allied forces was imminent, and his hold over northern Italy was loosening by the minute. Though he tried to flee the country dressed as a German officer, Mussolini was killed, desecrated, and strung up at a gas station in Milan.

The photo of Mussolini's death documents the tail end of what was a full day of desecrating his corpse. Though he was killed by machine gun fire before being dumped into a central square in Milan, that didn't stop swells of people from beating, shooting, spitting on, and screaming at his lifeless body. Along with his mistress Clara Petacci and 14 other fascists, Benito Mussolini's body was beaten beyond recognition and hung above a gas station – a symbol of what the world thought of fascist leaders at the end of WWII.

Mussolini's murder at the hands of Italian partisans wasn't the first time Italians had expressed their disapproval of Mussolini's leadership, however. Though he was elected democratically in 1922, Mussolini only pretended to respect this form of governance for a short time; within five years, Mussolini and his Fascist Party had established a dictatorship in Italy. When he allied his country with Germany at the advent of WWII, Italians were none too happy with his choice. He was even captured and imprisoned by the Italian government in 1943; Hitler's troops freed him, however. From then, until his death, he ruled over the German puppet state of the Italian Social Republic in northern Italy. That is, until he met his brutal end in April of 1945.

WARNING: There's a graphic video below.