Mussolini is shown in newsreel footage achieving one of his great successes, rapprochement with the Vatican and recognition of the Italian state by the Roman Catholic Church, reciprocated by Catholicism being given established church status in Italy. What is less commonly known is that Mussolini was a great admirer of Islam, and said privately that he wished Italians had adopted Islam as it would toughen them up. Italy did have a large number of Muslims in its North African colonies and Mussolini called these Italy's "Fourth Shore". He later took the title "Sword of Islam" and "Protector of Islam". Mussolini built and restored mosques and Koranic schools there, preparing service facilities for the pilgrims going to Mecca and even making a High School of Islamic Culture in Tripoli. In fact, Mussolini's handling of both the Roman Catholic Church and Islam rank among his greater political achievements.
Mussolini could speak several languages to conversational level, including French, German and English. His French was the best of the three and was fluent, but he preferred to use interpreters to speak to British and German politicians including Hitler. In one notorious speech in his halting and accented English he announces that he wants "Peace". This directly contradicted his speeches about reconstructing the Roman Empire.
In earlier life, Mussolini was not only an atheist (as mentioned in the series), but on the far left rather than the right. In 1902, Mussolini emigrated to Switzerland, partly to avoid compulsory military service. Mussolini became active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, working for the paper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore, organizing meetings, giving speeches to workers, and serving as secretary of the Italian workers' union in Lausanne. Angelica Balabanov reportedly introduced him to Vladimir Lenin, who later criticized Italian socialists for having lost Mussolini from their cause. Returning to Italy, he spent a brief time in Milan, and in 1910 he returned to his hometown of Forlì, where he edited the weekly Lotta di classe (The Class Struggle).
Mussolini talks about recreating the Roman Empire in Africa and Asia to his followers in one scene. While he never succeeded in getting any colonies in Asia, he did manage to conquer Abyssinia, or Ethiopia as it is known now. Tripolitania (centred on Tripoli) and Cyrenaica (centred on Bengasi/Benghazi) were pre-existing Italian colonies but Mussolini merged the two later creating modern Libya. Mussolini's later attempts to carve out more territory in Europe were less successful and required substantial German rescue efforts. He did however manage to take and hold historically Italian cities such as Nice (or Nizza, birthplace of Garibaldi) and Trieste.
Claretta Petacci was 28 years Mussolini's junior, but later became his mistress. After Violet Gibson, an insane Irish woman who claimed to be directed by angels, attempted to assassinate the dictator in April 1926, the 14-year-old Petacci wrote to him commenting "O, Duce, why was I not with you? ... Could I not have strangled that murderous woman?" Mussolini granted Gibson an amnesty, and she spent the rest of her life in a lunatic asylum in England. Claretta on the other hand ended up being assassinated by partisans, along with her beloved Duce.