March 8, 1916: Pancho Villa crosses from Mexico into New Mexico, and attacks the town of Columbus, 3 miles north of the border. It remains the last land invasion of the United States of America.
Mexico had been in a state of revolution since 1910. In 1914, 9 U.S. sailors came ashore at the Mexican port city of Veracruz to secure supplies, and were detained by Mexican forces. The Mexican government refused to release them, and, despite the country being in a state of revolution and civil war, all the factions united against the U.S.
President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to Veracruz, under the command of Admiral Henry T. Mayo, and taking the city turned out to be easy. The occupation lasted 6 months, and led to the fall of President Victoriano Huerta. But this led to a renewal of the hatred of Americans by Mexicans, originally stoked by the Mexican-American War of 1846 and 1847.
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula was born on June 5, 1878 in San Juan del Río, in the State of Durango. He began calling himself Francisco Villa, taking his grandfather's surname, although it's not clear where the nickname "Pancho" came from. His friends called him "La Cucaracha" (The Cockroach), but he would he would eventually be called the Lion of the North, the Centaur of the North, and the Mexican Napoleon.
He became a key figure in the movement that forced out President Porfirio Diaz. But when the next President, Francisco Madero, was ousted by General Victoriano Huerta in 1913, Villa led the Constitutionalist Army against him.
But, as so often happens, after the revolution, the victors split, between the forces of Villa and Venustiano Carranza. The U.S. government aided the Carranza government against Villa in the Second Battle of Agua Prieta in November 1915. Villa lost, and most of his army left him.
Angry over this, on March 8, 1916, he took what he had left, crossed the border into Columbus, New Mexico -- New Mexico had only gained Statehood 4 years earlier -- and raided an American military outpost manned by the 13th U.S. Cavalry, because he needed weapons. In so doing, 8 American soldiers and 10 civilians were killed. But 67 of Villa's men were killed, and 7 were captured. He got the weapons he needed, but, in terms of manpower, he was considerably worse off.
But, like George Washington, he knew he wasn't the best of generals, but was a savvy politician. He gave interviews to foreign journalists, including John Reed, whose fame now rests on his reporting on the Bolshevik Revolution. He had film cameras follow him, and allowing the films to be sent to Hollywood and released, with the label "And starring Pancho Villa as himself." In 2003, that became the title of a film about Villa, starring Spanish actor Antonio Banderas.
The raid led to another American invasion of Mexico, which became known as the Punitive Expedition. While failing to capture Villa, it sent him into hiding, leading to his downfall. It was also a convenient warmup for the U.S. Army for fighting in World War I, especially since its commander was General John J. Pershing. "Black Jack" would go on to command U.S. troops in Europe in World War I. General George S. Patton, then a Lieutenant, credited much of his later career to having served on this Expedition.
Cartoon by Clifford Berryman for The Washington Star
In 1920, Carranza was ousted from power, and the new President, Adolfo de la Huerta, offered Villa a deal: Amnesty and a landed estate, if he would retire from politics. He took it. But on July 20, 1923, while visiting Parral, in the State of Chihuahua, he was assassinated in his car, a 1919 Dodge, probably on the orders of the next President, Álvaro Obregón, who still saw him as a threat. Supposedly, Villa's last words were, "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
After his death he was excluded from the pantheon of revolutionary heroes until the Sonoran generals Obregón and Calles, whom he battled during the Revolution, were gone from the political stage. Villa's exclusion from the official narrative of the Revolution might have contributed to his continued posthumous popular acclaim. He was celebrated during the Revolution and long afterward by corridos, films about his life, and novels by prominent writers. In 1976, his remains were reburied in the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City in a huge public ceremony.
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March 8, 1916 was a Wednesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was in the off-season. Professional basketball didn't really exist.
This was before the National Hockey League, but there was a National Hockey Association, from which only the Montreal Canadiens survive today, although a new Ottawa Senators team took up the name of an NHA/NHL franchise that went out of business in 1934; and a Pacific Coast Hockey Association, from which no teams survive.
The PCHA wrapped up its season on February 25. Two games were played in the NHA on this day. The Toronto Blueshirts beat the Montreal Wanderers, 3-2 at the Montreal Arena. And the Ottawa Senators beat the Quebec Bulldogs, 8-5 at the Ottawa Arena.
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