On November 20, Mexico celebrates the anniversary of its Revolution. On this date, in the year 1910 the war to overthrow the dictator Porfirio Díaz, began.

General Porfirio Díaz had been an important military figure during the wars against the foreign invaders, and had tried to overthrow President Benito Juarez in 1872. Then again, he rebelled against President Lerdo de Tejada in 1876 and won.

Don Porfirio, as he was called, had been in power for more than 30 years (1876-1911). Under his rule, Mexico had political stability and grew in many areas, creating new industries, railroads, kilometers of railroad tracks as well as the increase of foreign capital. Non-the less, this progress was not translated into the peoples’ well being.

Soon there was political unrest. The unhappiest sectors of the Mexican society were the peasants and labor workers. To defend these two popular sectors, Ricardo Flores Magón founded the Mexican Liberal Party. Flores Magón was obviously persecuted by the Porfirist regime, and died in an American prison. In 1906 the army brutally repressed a strike of miners in the Cananea mine in Sonora. As you can see, Díaz did every thing in his power to crush any uprisings. The Cananea massacre is historically considered

In early 1909 Francisco I. Madero founded the Anti Reelectionist Party.

Madero came from a wealthy family from Coahuila. He had studied business in France as well as in the U.S. He vigorously fought against reelection and for democracy and liberty in Mexico through his political newspaper articles.

The Anti Reelectionist party designated him to run for President in the elections of 1910.

Díaz was now under constant pressure, and on June 6th he ordered the imprisonment of Madero, augmenting that he was “inciting rebellion and offending the authorities”.

Francisco I. Madero was taken to a prison in San Luis Potosí, where he awaited the results of the elections. There he learned that through an electoral fraud Díaz declared himself President of Mexico one more time!

Then and there Madero, who had always been a pacifist, decided to flee from prison and call for a National Insurrection on November 20 1910. He declared the electoral process invalid and appointed provisional Governors. Immediately, uprising broke out in several Mexican states. The first were Puebla, Coahuila, Chihuahua and Sonora.