History isn't just a bunch of names and dates and facts.

It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explained how and why we got here.

Welcome to the History Unplugged podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,

and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.

I'm your host, Scott Rank.

For many Americans, one of the most shocking events that ever happened to them in living memory is the September 11th attacks. Part of it has to do with the assumption held by many

that attack happening on the U.S. mainland was impossible. If you go back a few more generations,

the thing it's most

comparable to is the Pearl Harbor attack. Well, before Pearl Harbor, another event happened

that shocked the United States, and that was the Battle of Columbus, which occurred in 1916.

This was a raid conducted by Pancho Villa, and it was done on the small U.S. border town

of Columbus, New Mexico, only three miles away from

the U.S. Mexican border. The raid escalated into a full-scale battle between the followers of

Pancho Villa, the Vistas, and the U.S. Army. Via and his division were led back into Mexico,

but the attack angered Americans and Woodrow Wilson ordered the punitive expedition which the U.S.

Army invaded Mexico. It was launched in retaliation

and led by General John J. Pershing, who had later become the leader of the U.S. expeditionary force

in World War I, and it brought together the Army, the National Guard, and the Texas Rangers,

who at this time were little more than organized vigilantes with a dislike Mexicans on both

side of the border.

Via was a guerrilla fighter who commanded an ever-changing force of conscripts in northern Mexico.

While the punitive expedition was pretty small in scale, but it had massive effects on the future. It affected how Pershing would lead troops in World War I. It affected U.S.-Mexican

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