The Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution: Beginning with a call to arms in 1910, the Mexican Revolution did not settle down until well into the 1920s. Undoubtedly, the most important moment came in 1917 with the official adoption of the current Mexican constitution. A variety of issues are attributed to the causes of this monumental event in Mexican history. For the most part, the Mexican people had had enough of Porfirio Díaz; who was the self-proclaimed military dictator of the country since 1876. Although great leaps forward had been made in terms of agrarian land reform and industrialization, the end of Díaz's regime was well-overdue. Two key members of the Revolution include Pancho Villa (pictured above) and Emiliano Zapata. In effect, these two men conducted the civil war to oust Díaz. With Villa attacking from the North and Zapata attacking from South, Díaz was effectively squeezed out of the capital (Mexico City). In the wake of Díaz's departure, Villa and Zapata sought to fashion a more stable Mexican government - one that emphasized the plight of Mexico's forgotten peoples, namely the millions of mestizos, or mixed-race folk, who toiled the land for basic survival in the countryside.