Pancho Villa

Born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula in 1878, Villa became a guerrilla leader who helped topple the dictator Porfirio Díaz and install Francisco I. Madero in 1911. When a coup ousted Madero in 1913, Villa joined the Constitutionalist Army against Victoriano Huerta, then broke with Carranza after Huerta's defeat, forming an alliance with Emiliano Zapata and briefly serving as provisional governor of Chihuahua. At his peak in late 1914 the U.S. weighed recognizing him as Mexico's legitimate president, but by summer 1915 he'd been crushed by General Álvaro Obregón, his army dissolving for lack of pa…