The city of Los Mochis ("Mochees", as locals call it) in the northern state of Sinaloa, is one of Mexico's newest cities. It dates back only as far as 1872, when a U.S. engineer, Albert Kimsey Owen (18... read more

Image by John Hardman Web Page During Christmas holidays, a college sophomore stumbled into a board game, "Pancho Villa, Dead or Alive." He was surprised I had heard of Pancho but not... read more

In the golden age of steam, railway lines were built all over Mexico. Rail quickly became THE way to travel. Depending on your status and wealth, you could travel third class, second class or first cla... read more

This chronological listing of Mexico's famous and infamous historical figures puts you only a click away from reading more about their victories, lives and loves. read more

There is something for everybody in Tony Burton's, Lake Chapala through the ages. Whether you are fascinated by the early history of the place where you now live or visit (or would like to visit), or whether you are interested in early accounts of the natural history of the region, or of the lake itself.

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The center arch of the wall contains the Mexican eagle holding a serpent that showed the end of the Aztecs' migration. Included on the current Mexican flag, the eagle also represents a resurgent Mexico... read more

José María Narváez (1768-1840) is one of Mexico's forgotten heroes. Captain George Vancouver is usually given the credit for exploring the Georgia Strait and discovering the site of the city that n... read more

Few people have ever less fitted the conventional image of a revolutionary than Venustiano Carranza. He was a country squire rather than an intellectual, he had been part of a ruling establishment and ... read more

In Norman Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish, the term "chutzpah" is defined as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts'; presumption-plus-arrogance such as no other word ... can do justice to." As... read more

While most of the leaders of Mexico's War of Independence were Mexican-born creoles, an exception was Francisco Javier Mina, whose name today appears on street signs and monuments throughout Mexico. Li... read more

Mention liberation theology and images that immediately come to mind are those of 1960s-style antiwar, anti-establishment priests like the Berrigan brothers or, more recently, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcí... read more

One of history's recurring ironies is the spectacle of figures who die in defeat or disgrace, but emerge in future generations as heroes while the people who defeated them are downgraded to villains. M... read more

Timothy Dwight, the fervently reactionary and comically pompous head of Yale University, was a strong Federalist supporter who predicted that the accession of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency would l... read more

It is entirely correct to think of the Aztec legend Quetzalcoatl in three contexts -- as historical personality, as divinity and as literary subject. In the first incarnation he is a 10th century pries... read more

On the surface, no two people ever appeared more dissimilar than John Stuart Mill and Juana Inés de la Cruz. One was a great rationalist, an apostle of individual liberty, an enemy of dogma and a beli... read more

(Synopsis & Photo) Victoriano Huerta was a man almost too bad to be true. Described by one historian as an "Elizabethan villain," he was a drunkard and repressive dictator who guaranteed himself a... read more

In a curious irony of history, an epigone frequently becomes better known than his/her illustrious namesake and predecessor. Mention Harold Ickes and most people will think you're talking about Clinton... read more

(This is an expanded version of an article that appeared in the October 18-24, 1997 issue of the COLONY REPORTER)   In 19th century Mexico, most of the intellectuals were firmly on th... read more

The next step was to get rid of Calles, who had become increasingly critical of Cárdenas's radicalism. To pre-empt a coup by the former strong man, Cárdenas sent a party of twenty soldiers and eight ... read more

His land reform policy reflected the same make-haste-slowly mentality. In his four years of power Obregón distributed three million acres among 624 villages -- hardly a staggering amount but still sev... read more

Of the major figures in the 1910-20 phase of the Mexican Revolution, only Alvaro Obregón and Pancho Villa remained. In a strange twist of fate, the counterrevolutionaries --Porfirio Díaz and Victoria... read more

It is no more possible to discuss Marxism in Mexico without referring to Vicente Lombardo Toledano than it is to reminisce about Abbott without mentioning Costello. A teacher, writer, union leader and ... read more

Among critics of the Roman Catholic Church in a country where a vast majority of the citizens are nominal Catholics, the charges most frequently heard are those of worldliness and hypocrisy. Anticleric... read more