It's "Cinco De Mayo!"--Mexican Independence Day!!! A Reason For Americans To Celebrate!
Today is Cinco De Mayo, a day for some to drink cheap beers and margaritas and eat some cheap tacos and appetizers. It's a day for bars to market those cheap drinks and eats to fill their bar seats!
It's a day in history that the Mexicans won their independence! Oh wait! -- No, it's not!
That's what most Americans believe about "Cinco De Mayo", that it's Mexican Independence Day, but that day is actually September 16th.
Cinco De Mayo actually marks the victory of the Mexican Army over the French Army at the Battle of Puebla, a town about 100 miles from Mexico City.
Now I am not a history buff, in fact I sometimes get bored with history, so I have to think of it like a story. What is so cool about this story is the French Army, under rule by Napoleon III, had not been defeated in 50 years!
The United States was involved in their own great war, The Civil War, and Napoleon thought it would be a good idea to try and take over Mexico City thinking that if their capital was overtaken they would just surrender to the French.
Well the Mexican army caught wind of the plan and patiently waited for them in the town of Puebla. The Mexican Army, numbering around 4,000 soldiers, outsmarted and outwitted the French Army's 8,000 soldiers!
Under the command of Texas-born General Zaragosa, (and the cavalry under the command of Colonel Porfirio Diaz, later to be Mexico's president and dictator), the Mexicans waited. Brightly dressed French Dragoons led the enemy columns. The Mexican Army was less stylish.
General Zaragosa ordered Colonel Diaz to take his cavalry, the best in the world, out to the French flanks. In response, the French did a most stupid thing; they sent their cavalry off to chase Diaz and his men, who proceeded to butcher them. The remaining French infantrymen charged the Mexican defenders through sloppy mud from a thunderstorm and through hundreds of heads of stampeding cattle stirred up by Indians armed only with machetes.
When the battle was over, many French were killed or wounded and their cavalry was being chased by Diaz' superb horsemen miles away. -VivaCincoDeMayo-
Now for the part that quite possibly changed history forever, even for us Americans. The defeat of the French army "kept Napoleon III from supplying the Confederate Rebels for another year, allowing the United States to build the greatest army the world had ever seen. This grand army smashed the Confederates at Gettysburg just 14 months after the Battle of Puebla, essentially ending the Civil War. -VivaCincoDeMayo-
Cinco De Mayo is now a highly over-commercialized day to drink and party, but I feel that way because I never knew the history behind the actual day's events.
After learning about the impact it made for Americans, I can see why it is such a great day to celebrate!
We are making tacos and margaritas at my house tonight!--but we were already planning to do that anyway.
