Veracruz Mexico

The son of peasants in Durango state, Villa killed a hacienda owner who had raped his sister and lived as an outlaw in the Sierra Madre mountains from the time he was 16. A Madero representative convinced him he could best get back at the hacienda owners by putting his outlaw skills to use in the revolution, and thus Villa helped to win the first Battle of Ciudad Juárez in 1911.

Villa offered his army to Gen. Victoriano Huerta in order to destroy forces opposing Madero's presidency; Huerta's response was to throw him in prison. He managed to escape and allied himself instead with Carranza. Villa, with a force of volunteers and mercenaries won quick victories at Ciudad Juárez, Tierra Blanca, Chihuahua and Ojinaga, earning him the governorship of Chihuahua state.

The U.S. Army invited Pancho Villa to meet with Gen. John J. Pershing and other senior officers at Fort Bliss, Texas. Returning to Mexico, Villa pressed south, using the railroads to strike quickly and win battles against Huerta at Gómez Palacio and Torreón. Carranza, wanting to get to Mexico City first, called him off, but a defiant Villa attacked the silver-producing mountain city of Zacatecas. Encountering a massive federal force, Villa won a gruesome battle that sent Huerta into exile. But he and Zapata broke with Carranza, suspecting he wanted to be a dictator. Carranza sent his ablest general north to battle Villa. Gen. Álvaro Obregón trounced Villa in the Battle of Celaya in 1915.

Villa's influence waned in following years; his last major military foray was in Ciudad Juárez in 1919. He retired to the hacienda of El Canutillo in Durango and was assassinated while driving his car through Parral, Chihuahua, in 1923.