System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Pancho Villa, Mexican bandit and revolutionary
June 05, 1878 - June 20, 1923
Francisco "Pancho" Villa was born on June 5, 1878, in San Juan Del Rio, Durango, Mexico to rural peasant parents.
Named Doroteo Arango, he later took several aliases, the most popular and well known being Pancho Villa. Raised in poverty in Durango, Mexico, he turned to cattle rustling and robbery as a young man and soon became one of Mexico's most wanted bandit leaders.
As an enemy of the Mexican Federal authorities who were trying to arrest him, Villa became a natural ally of Francisco Madero in the latter's struggle to overthrow President Porfirio Diaz. Appointed a colonel in Madero's revolutionary army, Villa led his forces in a daring raid against Juarez on May 11, 1911, capturing the city and securing Madero's position as the new president. When Madero was assassinated two years later in a coup led by Vitoriano Huerta, Villa quickly reorganized his Army of the North and became one of the most important leaders of the anti-Huerta faction. Villa's highly mobile mounted troops, called villistas, triumphed over the new president's army in northern Mexico in the Battle of Zacatecas on June 23, 1913 then began a campaign to the south. By December they captured Mexico City in conjunction with the revolutionaries under Venustiano Carranza and Emiliano Zapata, placing control of the government in the hands of the three rebel leaders. The following spring, Villa lost his position of national leadership in a power struggle with Carranza and was driven back to his headquarters in Durango. There he resumed his life as a bandit, raiding American border towns and mining camps as well as Mexican towns. In 1914, Villa signed a contract with Mutual Films of New York for the screen rights to his guerrilla war.
On March 9, 1916, Villa and his men massacred dozens of unarmed Americans in an attack on Columbus, New Mexico, USA, prompting the US Army to dispatch an army unit under General John J. Pershing to capture Villa. But Villa's maneuverability and superior knowledge of the terrain enabled them to elude capture from the Americans and Pershing's troops withdrew from the area the following year.
In 1920, the new Mexican government reached an agreement with Villa under which he agreed to halt his raids in return for settling on a ranch in Canutillo and his appointment to general in the Mexican army. Villa was subsequently killed in an ambush near Parral, Mexico on June 20, 1923 by followers of Alvaro Obregon who feared that Villa would oppose their leader's candidacy for president in the upcoming elections.
