Happy Cinco De Mayo!

By Carol Silva

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Now, that may have you thinking it's Mexican Independence Day - but it's not!  And there's a lot more to the day than Corona and tacos!

Mexico had declared its independence from Spain on September 15, 1810.  But it took 11 years for the occupying Spanish soldiers to leave Mexico.

Cinco de Mayo didn't happen until 52 years later. In that interim, Mexico had fought it's own Civil War and was deep ind debt to countries that had financed it - France, Spain and Great Britain. In 1862, French, Spanish and English troops had come, wanting to collect what they were owed from Mexico's new democratic President Benito Juarez.  The English and Spanish got their money and left, but the French wanted more.

The French were ready to expand their empire. French Emperor Napoleon III, hated the United States so much, he sent his relative and Austrian prince Maximilian and his wife with the French troops - to take over the Mexican empire.  (Just then the U-S was busy fighting the Civil War.) It had been a half century since Napoleon's French Army had lost a big battle. And they had big guns - and new ones too. The French were ready to rumble.

The well equipped French Army thought if they could take the capital - Mexico City - that the Mexicans would surrender (that's the gentlemanly way many wars were fought in Europe.) The 8,000 French soldiers landed on the Carribean coast at Veracruz and began the 600-mile walk to Mexico City. But on May 5, 1862, slightly more than 4,000 Mexican soldiers got in their way, surrounded the French groops from the outside and stopped them for good at Puebla. (There was a lot of blood letting, and stuff, that I'll just leave out here.)

The war was won - ah - for about a year. You see, the French came back with 30,000 troops and Maximilian was installed as leader of Mexico. By then, though, the American Civil War was over and American Union troops were rushed to the Texas/Mexican border. The U-S and Mexico were good friends, and President Lincoln was also protecting America's southern border, by making sure the French were gone for good.

And THAT's the story of Cinco de Mayo. By the way, today, Cinco de Mayo is actually a regional party in Mexico, celebrated mostly around the state of Puebla. But we Americans seem to like any reason to celebrate - so Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Comments

[Anthony Hunter]

I was watching the news this morning and was wondering what is a bafrican american? If u have any idea what that is i would really like to know.You should have a 30sec delay for the news.

[Anthony Hunter]

I was watching the news this morning and was wondering what is a bafrican american? If u have any idea what that is i would really like to know.You should have a 30sec delay for the news.