Francisco "Pancho" Villa raids Columbus, New Mexico on March 9. In response General John J. Pershing leads 4,800 U.S. soldiers on a punitive expedition into Mexico which begins on March 14 and ends on February 7, 1917.
President Warren G. Harding dies in office on August 2. Later that day Vice President Calvin Coolidge (Massachusetts) becomes the thirtieth President of the U.S.
The Teapot Dome Scandal evolves in California and Washington, D.C. in the summer. In 1929 New Mexico Senator Albert Fall becomes the first former cabinet officer sentenced to prison.
