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A Prank Led to America’s First Nominated Female to Office, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 13, 2019 33 min

21. Background to a Farce

The type of suitcase bomb dropped by Patrick Murphy and other pilots during the fighting around Naco. Wikimedia

American spectators thought the combat in Mexican Naco was exciting, but in April of 1929, things got too exciting. That was when the Mexican rebels hired a mercenary barnstormer pilot, an Irishman named Patrick Murphy, to drop homemade bombs on federales trenches. On April 2^nd, 1929, Murphy dropped a pair of bombs near federales positions, but they turned out to be duds. Another attempt finally produced a strike on a Mexican customs house.

Shrapnel peppered crowds of American spectators gathered in nearby salons and clubs in Mexican Naco, causing them to rush back to the American side of the border. It has widely been rumored that Murphy was flying while drunk, which explains why, soon thereafter, he dropped a bomb on American Naco.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.