Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary, led a surprise pre-dawn raid across the border into the United States on March 9, 1916, attacking Columbus, New Mexico

Villa’s raiders burned part of the town and killed 18 Americans. In response, President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to pursue Villa into Mexico – an expedition that penetrated deep into Mexican territory but failed to capture Villa. The raid and subsequent “Punitive Expedition” brought the U.S. and Mexico to the brink of conflict and marked the last armed foreign invasion of the continental U.S.