paragraph_text: World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. The vast majority of the world's countries -- including all of the great powers -- eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most global war in history; it directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of total war, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of which were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

paragraph_text: The Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, and along with Mussolini's Italy sought to gain control of the continent by the Second World War. Following the Allied victory in the Second World War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain. The countries in Southeastern Europe were dominated by the Soviet Union and became communist states. The major non-communist Southern European countries joined a US-led military alliance (NATO) and formed the European Economic Community amongst themselves. The countries in the Soviet sphere of influence joined the military alliance known as the Warsaw Pact and the economic bloc called Comecon. Yugoslavia was neutal.

paragraph_text: Part of a series on the History of the Ottoman Empire Rise (1299 -- 1453) (show) Gaza Thesis Interregnum (1402 -- 1413) Fall of Constantinople Classical Age (1453 -- 1566) (show) Sultanate of Women Transformation (1566 -- 1703) (show) Köprülü Era (1656 -- 1703) Old Regime (1703 -- 1789) (show) Tulip Era (1718 -- 1730) Decline and modernization (1789 -- 1908) (show) Nizam - i Djedid Tanzimat Era (1839 -- 1876) 1st Constitutional Era (1876 -- 1878) Defeat and dissolution (1908 -- 1922) (show) 2nd Constitutional Era (1908 -- 1920) World War I (1914 -- 1918) Partitioning Historiography

paragraph_text: The partition of the Ottoman Empire (Armistice of Mudros, 30 October 1918 -- Abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate, 1 November 1922) was a political event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Constantinople by British, French and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several agreements made by the Allied Powers early in the course of World War I, notably the Sykes - Picot Agreement. As world war loomed, the Ottoman Empire sought protection but was rejected by Britain, France, and Russia, and finally formed the Ottoman -- German Alliance. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire led to the rise in the Middle East of Western powers such as Britain and France and brought the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these powers came from the Turkish national movement but did not become widespread in the post-Ottoman states until after World War II.

paragraph_text: The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history covers the brief reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910, and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victorian era. Her son and successor, Edward VII, was already the leader of a fashionable elite that set a style influenced by the art and fashions of continental Europe. Samuel Hynes described the Edwardian era as a "leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun really never set on the British flag."

paragraph_text: Starting in 1940 (18 months before Pearl Harbor), the nation mobilized, giving high priority to air power. American involvement in World War II in 1940–41 was limited to providing war material and financial support to Britain, the Soviet Union, and the Republic of China. The U.S. entered officially on 8 December 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japanese forces soon seized American, Dutch, and British possessions across the Pacific and Southeast Asia, except for Australia, which became a main American forward base along with Hawaii.

paragraph_text: The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was an organisation of 6 European countries set up after World War II to regulate their industrial production under a centralised authority. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The ECSC was the first international organisation to be based on the principles of supranationalism, and started the process of formal integration which ultimately led to the European Union.

paragraph_text: The history of Ottoman Bulgaria spans nearly 500 years, from the conquest by the Ottoman Empire of the smaller kingdoms emerging from the disintegrating Second Bulgarian Empire in the late 14th century, to the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878. As a result of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the Principality of Bulgaria, a self-governing Ottoman vassal state that was functionally independent, was created. In 1885 the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia came under the control of the Bulgarian Tsar. Bulgaria declared independence in 1908.

paragraph_text: Rila (, pronounced ) is a town in southwestern Bulgaria, in Rila Municipality, part of Kyustendil Province. It is the administrative centre of Rila Municipality, which lies in the southeastern part of Kyustendil Province.

paragraph_text: Lloyd Cortez Hawks (January 13, 1911 – October 26, 1953) was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.

paragraph_text: The 2014 European Cross Country Championships was the 21st edition of the cross country running competition for European athletes which was held in Samokov, Bulgaria, on 14 December 2014. The events were hosted at Borovets – a winter sports and ski resort in the Rila mountains.

paragraph_text: Originally a 1930s airport which was seized by the Germans during the Battle of France, it was used by the Luftwaffe, then by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After the war, the site was abandoned and is now agricultural fields.

paragraph_text: The Western Allied invasion of Germany was coordinated by the Western Allies during the final months of hostilities in the European theatre of World War II. The Allied invasion of Germany started with the Western Allies crossing the Rhine River in March 1945 before fanning out and overrunning all of western Germany from the Baltic in the north to Austria in the south before the Germans surrendered on 8 May 1945. This is known as the ``Central Europe Campaign ''in United States military histories.

paragraph_text: The Serbian revolution (1804–1815) marked the beginning of an era of national awakening in the Balkans during the Eastern Question. Suzerainty of Serbia as a hereditary monarchy under its own dynasty was acknowledged de jure in 1830. In 1821, the Greeks declared war on the Sultan. A rebellion that originated in Moldavia as a diversion was followed by the main revolution in the Peloponnese, which, along with the northern part of the Gulf of Corinth, became the first parts of the Ottoman Empire to achieve independence (in 1829). By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was called the "sick man" by Europeans. The suzerain states – the Principality of Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia and Montenegro – moved towards de jure independence during the 1860s and 1870s.

paragraph_text: The establishment of Ottoman military aviation dates back to between June 1909 and July 1911. The Ottoman Empire started preparing its first pilots and planes, and with the founding of the Aviation School (Tayyare Mektebi) in Yeşilköy on 3 July 1912, the Empire began to tutor its own flight officers. The founding of the Aviation School quickened advancement in the military aviation program, increased the number of enlisted persons within it, and gave the new pilots an active role in the Ottoman Army and Navy. In May 1913 the world's first specialized Reconnaissance Training Program was started by the Aviation School and the first separate reconnaissance division was established.[citation needed] In June 1914 a new military academy, the Naval Aviation School (Bahriye Tayyare Mektebi) was founded. With the outbreak of World War I, the modernization process stopped abruptly. The Ottoman aviation squadrons fought on many fronts during World War I, from Galicia in the west to the Caucasus in the east and Yemen in the south.

paragraph_text: The struggle related to the constitutional movement continued until 1911, when Mohammad Ali Shah was defeated and forced to abdicate. On the pretext of restoring order, the Russians occupied Northern Iran in 1911, and maintained a military presence in the region for years to come. During World War I, the British occupied much of Western Iran, and fully withdrew in 1921. The Persian Campaign commenced furthermore during World War I in Northwestern Iran after an Ottoman invasion, as part of the Middle Eastern Theatre of World War I. As a result of Ottoman hostilities across the border, a large amount of the Assyrians of Iran were massacred by the Ottoman armies, notably in and around Urmia. Apart from the rule of Aqa Mohammad Khan, the Qajar rule is characterized as a century of misrule.

paragraph_text: In 1888, the Italian administration launched its first development projects in the new colony. The Eritrean Railway was completed to Saati in 1888, and reached Asmara in the highlands in 1911. The Asmara–Massawa Cableway was the longest line in the world during its time, but was later dismantled by the British in World War II. Besides major infrastructural projects, the colonial authorities invested significantly in the agricultural sector. It also oversaw the provision of urban amenities in Asmara and Massawa, and employed many Eritreans in public service, particularly in the police and public works departments. Thousands of Eritreans were concurrently enlisted in the army, serving during the Italo-Turkish War in Libya as well as the First and second Italo-Abyssinian Wars.

paragraph_text: From childhood, Gaddafi was aware of the involvement of European colonialists in Libya; his nation was occupied by Italy, and during the North African Campaign of World War II it witnessed conflict between Italian and British troops. According to later claims, Gaddafi's paternal grandfather, Abdessalam Bouminyar, was killed by the Italian Army during the Italian invasion of 1911. At World War II's end in 1945, Libya was occupied by British and French forces. Although Britain and France intended on dividing the nation between their empires, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) declared that the country be granted political independence. In 1951, the UN created the United Kingdom of Libya, a federal state under the leadership of a pro-western monarch, Idris, who banned political parties and established an absolute monarchy.

paragraph_text: As a result of this conflict, the Ottoman Turks ceded the provinces of Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica to Italy. These provinces together formed what became known as Libya.

paragraph_text: Libya (; ; ), officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest. The sovereign state is made of three historical regions: Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost , Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa, and is the 16th largest country in the world. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya and contains over one million of Libya's six million people. The second-largest city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya.

Question: The town of Rila is located in this country that is part of the history of an empire. Who was leader of the European state that seized Libya from this empire in 1911?
Answer: Mussolini