Bettino Craxi

Bettino Craxi (born Benedetto Craxi in Milan, Italy on February 24, 1934) was an Italian politician. The diminutive of Benedetto used to be Benito between revolutionary Italian families, as a Spanish and South American reference, until Benito Mussolini made it inexpedient, imprudent and offensive to use that form.

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Craxi was the Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987, and head of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993. He is the second longest-serving Prime Minister in Italy since 1945, after Silvio Berlusconi. He had strong influence in Italian politics throughout the eighties; for some time, he was a close ally of two key figures of Democrazia Cristiana, Giulio Andreotti and Arnaldo Forlani, in a loose cross-party alliance often dubbed CAF. He had a firm grasp on a party previously troubled by factionalism, and tried to distance it from the communists bringing it closer to Christian Democrats and other parties; his objective was to create an Italian version of Socialist parties like the German SPD or the French Socialist Party. The party reached its apex when it increased its share of votes in the general election of 1983, after temporarily abandoning its coalition with the Christian Democrats. However, the Italian Socialist Party never outgrew the much larger Italian Communist Party, whose highly charismatic leader, Enrico Berlinguer, was a fierce adversary of Craxi's policies throughout the years.

Milan, Italy: REDIRECT Milan...

February 24: February 24 is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 310 days remaining, 311 in leap years. By Roman custom February 24 is the day added to a leap year, and the occurrence of February 29 is merely a consequence of this....

1934: 1934 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar)....