Pancho Villa
Francisco 'Pancho' Villa was the commander of the División del Norte (Division of the North), the most formidable revolutionary army of the Mexican Revolution. Born Doroteo Arango to a sharecropper family, he became a bandit-turned-guerrilla and joined Madero's revolution in 1910. His Division del Norte grew into an army of 40,000 with its own railroad supply network, artillery, and medical corps — financed partly by cattle raids on haciendas. The decisive Battle of Zacatecas (June 1914), in which Villa's forces stormed a heavily defended mountain city, broke the back of Huerta's federal army and was one of the largest battles in the Western Hemisphere since the US Civil War. After falling out with Carranza, Villa's forces declined. His March 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico — killing 18 Americans — prompted the US Punitive Expedition under General Pershing, which spent 11 months in northern Mexico failing to catch him. This was the last US combat deployment inside Mexico and the first use of US military aviation. Villa was assassinated in 1923 after retiring. His memory was rehabilitated in the 1970s and he is now officially a national hero.
- Lived: 1878 CE – 1923 CE
- Nationality: mexican
- Roles: revolutionary, military_leader, general
