Portal:Mexico/Selected biography archive/August 2007

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Doroteo Arango Arámbula (June 5, 1878 – July 23, 1923) – better known as Francisco Villa or, by the nickname for Francisco "Pancho". Pancho Villa was one of the foremost leaders of the Mexican Revolution and provisional governor of the state of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914. Villa mostly operated in the northern theatre of the war, centering on Chihuahua, in the north of Mexico. Villa is often referred to as El centauro del norte (The Centaur of the North), due to his celebrated cavalry attacks as a general. Numerous streets and neighborhoods in Mexico are named for Villa. In the United States, Villa is principally remembered for his 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico, that provoked the Punitive Expedition commanded by General John J. Pershing, although the raid itself was a fairly minor event in Villa's military campaign history.