Francisco "Pancho" Villa was a Mexican revolutionary, guerrilla leader, and politician. He was a key figure in the Mexican Revolution, which forced out President and dictator Porfirio Díaz, subsequently ending the Porfiriato, and brought Francisco I. Madero to power in 1911. When Madero was ousted by a coup led by General Victoriano Huerta in February 1913, Villa joined the anti-Huerta forces in the Constitutionalist Army led by Venustiano Carranza. After the defeat and exile of Huerta in July 1914, Villa broke with Carranza. Villa dominated the meeting of revolutionary generals that excluded Carranza and helped create a coalition government. Emiliano Zapata and Villa became formal allies in this period. Like Zapata, Villa was strongly in favor of land reform, but did not implement it when he had power. Villa served as provisional governor of Chihuahua from 1913 to 1914.
Biography from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Pancho Villa in our timeline
Also born on June 5
- Mark Wahlberg1971 · American actor
- John Maynard Keynes1883 · British economist
- Troye Sivan1995 · Australian singer and actor
- Federico García Lorca1898 · Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director
- Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo1942 · President of Equatorial Guinea since 1979
- Jeff Garlin1962 · American comedian and actor
- Rick Riordan1964 · American author
- Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover1771 · King of Hanover from 1837 to 1851
Also born in 1878
- Joseph Stalin1878 · Leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953
- Reza Shah1878 · Shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941
- Lionel Barrymore1878 · American actor, director, screenwriter
- Lise Meitner1878 · Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist
- Upton Sinclair1878 · American writer
- Manuel L. Quezon1878 · President of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944
- Kazimir Malevich1878 · Russian artist and painter
- C. Rajagopalachari1878 · Indian statesman and writer