While recent relations between Mexico and the United States have (for the most part) been cordial in recent years, the two countries have more than a century long history of discord.
With U.S. President Donald Trump threatening military action against Mexico, we take a look at some of the previous battles and invasions fought between the two North American neighbors.
The Tennessee slaver who tried to conquer Mexico
In the 1800s, Baja California faced more than storms and pirates — it faced would‑be conquerors armed with cannons, foreign flags and expansionist ambitions. French aristocrats, U.S. adventurers like William Walker and influential border businessmen who sought to claim the peninsula for profit, slavery and personal glory. Chris Sands highlights the Mexican generals, ranchers and communities whose resistance ensured that Baja California remained Mexican territory.
Who were the 19th-century scoundrels who kept trying to invade the Baja Peninsula?
How Mexico lost more than half its land to the U.S.
One treaty permanently redrew the map of North America — and left deep scars that still shape U.S.–Mexico relations today. War, broken promises and land grabs forged a shared but uneasy history that remains painfully relevant. Monserrat Castro revisits the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which cost Mexico 55% of its territory, upended the lives of 80,000 Mexican residents and fueled the road to the U.S. Civil War.
176 years ago today, Mexico lost 55% of its territory
The failed occupation of Veracruz
In 1914, a brief arrest of nine U.S. sailors in Tampico spiraled into a full‑scale U.S. invasion of Veracruz, while Mexico was already engulfed in revolution. Leigh Thelmadatter retells the Tampico Affair from the Mexican side: Wilson’s gambit to topple Huerta, civilian resistance, and a bloody occupation that left 500 Mexicans dead and deepened anti‑U.S. sentiment across the country.
What’s the real story of Mexico’s hero cadets?
In Mexico, six cadets known as the Niños Héroes are honored as martyrs who died defending Chapultepec Castle from U.S. troops in 1847, wrapped in the flag rather than surrender. Oxford University’s Shyal Bhandari writes exclusively for Mexico News Daily and asks how much of that story is history and how much is myth, tracing missing records, conflicting accounts and an Indigenous officer whose sacrifice may have been erased.
90 years ago, almost 2 million Mexicans were deported en masse
Nearly a century before today’s mass‑deportation efforts, the United States already removed 1.8 million Mexicans at the height of the Great Depression. This deeply reported piece revisits Herbert Hoover’s 1930s “American jobs for real Americans” campaign, saw deportations without due process, condemning many U.S. citizens to removal. From park raids and hospital round‑ups to California’s modern apology, Sheryl Losser reveals a history many prefer to forget but which echoes ominously into the present.
The most recent incursion
On a windswept stretch of Tamaulipas sand, beachgoers suddenly found signs warning they were on U.S. Department of Defense property and could be detained and searched. After the Mexican Navy tore down six unauthorized signs on Playa Bagdad, Washington said contractors “made a mistake.” Why does this episode hit a nerve when talk of unilateral U.S. military action in Mexico grows louder?
Mexico News Daily
