Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution began in November 1910 when Francisco I. Madero issued the Plan de San Luis Potosí, calling for armed rebellion against the long-running dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, who had ruled Mexico for most of the period since 1876 (the Porfiriato). Díaz resigned in May 1911 and went into exile, and Madero was elected president later that year.

The revolution quickly fragmented. Madero was overthrown and killed in February 1913 during the Decena Trágica in a coup led by General Victoriano Huerta, with the involvement of U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson. A broad coalition then rose against Huerta, including Venustiano Carranza's Constitutionalists, Álvaro Obregón, Pancho Villa in the north, and Emiliano Zapata in the south, whose Plan de Ayala (1911) demanded land restitution for peasant communities under the slogan "Tierra y Libertad."

After Huerta's defeat in 1914, the victors turned on each other. Obregón's forces defeated Villa at the Battle of Celaya in 1915. Carranza convened a constitutional convention that produced the Constitution of 1917, one of the era's most socially progressive charters, notably:

• Article 27, asserting national ownership of subsoil resources and authorizing land redistribution;
• Article 123, establishing labor rights including the eight-hour day and the right to strike;
• Article 3, mandating secular public education.

Zapata was assassinated in 1919, Carranza in 1920, and Villa in 1923. Obregón's presidency (1920–1924) is often treated as the consolidation phase. The conflict caused massive demographic loss and displacement, with estimates of total deaths ranging widely from roughly one to two million.

The revolution shaped twentieth-century Mexico: the dominant party that emerged (later the PRI) governed continuously from 1929 to 2000, and Article 27 framed the 1938 oil expropriation by President Lázaro Cárdenas. It also influenced Latin American agrarian and constitutional thought, and remains a touchstone in debates over land reform, indigenous rights, and resource sovereignty.