Today in Labor History March 9, 1916: Pancho Villa led nearly 500 Mexican rebels in an attack against the U.S. border town of Columbus, New Mexico. It developed into a full-on battle between U.S. troops and Mexican revolutionaries. Villa led the assault himself. It angered President Woodrow Wilson so thoroughly that he sent U.S. troops into Mexico, but failed to capture Villa. The following year, vigilantes kidnapped and deported 1,300 striking IWW miners, many of whom were immigrant, from the mines of Bisbee, Arizona, to the New Mexico desert. Many were taken directly to Columbus, which was still under U.S. military occupation, in hopes that the soldiers there would attack the workers.

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