Who was Poncho Villa ?

Question

What things did he accomplish. was he a Hero Please let me know anything you can about him.

Answer 1

He was a Mexican bandit around the time of World War I.

He is no more a hero than Bonnie & Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or Billy the Kid.

Answer 2

Doroteo Arango Arámbula (June 5, 1878 – July 20, 1923), better known as Francisco or "Pancho" Villa, was a Mexican Revolutionary general. At the age of 16 he shot another young man - a son of a big landowner - who tried to rape his (Pancho's) younger sister Pancha. After this, being declaimed as a murderer, he escaped. During the following years, first living as an outlaw, then working his way up to a position as a division's commander, not many details are known.

As commander of the División del Norte (Division of the North), he was the veritable caudillo of the Northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, which, due to its size, mineral wealth and proximity to the United States of America gave him great popularity and he was provisional Governor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914. While he was prevented from being accepted into the "pantheon" of national heroes until some twenty years after his death, today his memory is honored by Mexicans and many US people. In addition, numerous streets and neighborhoods in Mexico are named in honor of him. In 1916 he raided Columbus, New Mexico. This act provoked the unsuccessful Punitive Expedition commanded by General John J. Pershing, which failed to capture Villa after a year in pursuit.

Villa and his supporters, known as Villistas, employed tactics such as propaganda and firing squads against his enemies, and seized hacienda land for distribution to peasants and soldiers. He robbed and commandeered trains, and, like the other Revolutionary generals, printed fiat money to pay for his cause. Villa's generalship was noted for the speed of its movement of troops (by railroad), the use of an elite cavalry unit called Los dorados ("the golden ones") (for which he earned the nickname El Centauro del Norte (The Centaur of the North)), artillery attacks, and recruitment of the enlisted soldiers of defeated enemy units. Many of Villa's tactics and strategies were adopted by later 20th century revolutionaries.[citation needed]

As one of the major (and most colorful) figures of the first successful popular revolution of the 20th century, Villa's notoriety attracted journalists, photographers, and military freebooters (of both idealistic and opportunistic stripes) from far and wide.

Villa's non-military revolutionary aims, unlike those of the Zapatista Plan de Ayala, were not clearly defined. Villa only spoke vaguely of creating communal military colonies for his troops.[citation needed]

Despite extensive research by Mexican and foreign scholars, many of the details of Villa's life are in dispute.

When one of Madero's military commanders, Pascual Orozco, started a counter-rebellion against Madero, Villa gathered his mounted cavalry troops and fought alongside General Victoriano Huerta to support Madero. However, Huerta viewed Villa as an ambitious competitor, and later accused Villa of stealing a horse and insubordination; he then had Villa sentenced to execution in an attempt to dispose of him. Reportedly, Villa was standing in front of a firing squad waiting to be shot when a telegram from President Madero was received commuting his sentence to imprisonment, from which Villa later escaped. During Villa's imprisonment, Gilbardo Magaña Cerda, a zapatista who was in prison at the time, provided the chance meeting which would help to improve his poor reading and writing skills, which would serve him well in the future during his service as provisional governor of the state of Chihuahua.