When President George Bush went on the air shortly after the attacks of September 11, linking Iran, Iraq and North Korea in an “axis of evil,” he was intentionally echoing the more famous axis that connected Germany with Italy and Japan in WW II. Before it came to include Japan, it was just Italy and Germany, and Italy’s leader Benito Mussolini, for one, was ecstatic about the connection. Aligning himself with the undisputed military power on the continent gave him a free hand to pursue his own expansionist dreams.

On this day, November 2, in 1936, in a speech in Milan, Benito Mussolini announced the “Rome-Berlin” axis  around which the entire world would revolve.

In reality, the axis was more one of convenience than necessity. Hitler and Mussolini found themselves in a similar political situation, ostracized from the League of Nations, by the time they formed their alliance. Mussolini was eager to ally himself with whoever seemed to be the strongest in Europe, and Hitler for his part used Italy’s military adventures in Africa to distract the rest of Europe from his remilitarization.