Villa, Pancho (Francisco), originally Doroteo Arangol 1877-1923
Mexican revolutionary

Born near San Juan del R�o, Durango, the son of a field labourer, he had various modest occupations before the Mexican Revolution made him famous as a military commander. In a fierce struggle for control of the revolution, he and Emiliano Zapata were defeated (1915) by Venustiano Carranza, with whom Villa had earlier allied himself against the dictatorship of General Victoriano Huerta. Both Villa and Zapata withdrew to strongholds in north and central Mexico and continued to carry on guerrilla warfare. In 1916 Villa was responsible for the shooting of a number of US citizens in the town of Santa Isabel, as well as an attack on the city of Columbus, New Mexico, which precipitated the sending of a US punitive force by President Woodrow Wilson. He eventually made peace with the government (1920) but was murdered in Parral.