23. The Drunk Irishman Who Bombed America
Tensions eased along the US-Mexican border after the Battle of Ambos Nogales, in no small part because the Mexican Revolution, whose spillover risks kept Mexico’s northern neighbor jittery, had ended. Then things worsened again in 1929, when a Mexican rebellion led to fighting between competing factions just across the border from the US. Things escalated, spilled over, and by the time the dust settled down, America had experienced its first aerial bombing.
America has been attacked from the air a few times, with Pearl Harbor and 9/11 being the best-known instances. However, America suffered its first aerial bombing in 1929, at the town of Naco, Arizona. Fighting in Mexico spilled over across the border, and a possibly drunk mercenary pilot, an Irishman named Patrick Murphy, was hired to bomb Mexican forces. He ended up bombing an American town instead.