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~~ Mexican Flag

It is well known that the number of people who know that Cinco de Mayo is a celebration vastly outnumber the number of people who know what the hell is being celebrated. Hint - see title, supra. I thought I'd take this opportunity to go into that a little bit but really need to provide a wee bit of overall background first.

The land area and islands currently known as Mexico (Los Estados Unidos de Mexico) as well as a lot of the lands and islands currently known as the USA (Los Estados Unidos de America) were long home to a large number of groups of indigenous peoples with diverse languages and cultures. Several of these were even recognized by assorted European and ex-European "savants" as "Civilizations." They did not always get along well with each other, but, then again, who did back in those days. Life, as it were, went on from day to day, much as life is won't to do. They were then invaded by hordes of amoral, bloodthirsty, avaricious barbarians from across the eastern ocean. These invaders then set about murdering, raping, pillaging and enslaving any and all populations they could find. They were followed by self righteous arrogant "colonists" who pretty much behaved in the same manner accompanied by berobed official representatives of the foreign theocracy who also behaved in a somewhat similar fashion, but who had the primary mission (no pun intended) of destroying the entire culture of the indigenous peoples as well as all of those people's cultural artifacts that they were capable of destroying. These parasites from hell were then in charge of things until the eighteen hundreds.

The people of what was then Mexico, still including a goodly chunk of what is now the USA rose up and overthrew the government imposed by the foreign colonial empire in a revolution culminating in 1821. Mexico was free, though not overwhelmingly powerful. Being less than overwhelmingly powerful was (and still is) a magnet for ill intentioned predators - persons, corporations and nations. I'll just run through a few of the more famous or infamous up through recent times.
There was the Texas Revolution, from 1835 to 1836.
There were the filibusteros. These were outright brigands with no CIA to give them support or cover, straight up mercenary private armies hoping to carve out private nation states:
William Walker, invaded Baja and Sonora in 1853 and 1854
Henry Alexander Crabb, invaded Sonora in 1857
Next up - nation states:
The Pastry War, France invaded in 1839. allegedly over debts. occupied some of Mexico for a while
The US war on Mexico, a land grab that got the US California, Nevada, Utah, plus arts of Arizona, New Mexico, and other odds and ends 1846 - 1848
The Second French Intervention, France invaded assisted by Great Britain and Spain 1861 to 1867.
The US invasion and occupation of Veracruz in 1914, dealt with at a little length in my OT on 04/21

The Battle of Puebla
OK that second French Intervention was by Napoleon III, Emperor of France from 1852 to 1870. Due to various problems Mexico's President, Benito Jaurez had declared a 2 year pause in certain debt intrest payments. Britain, France and Spain agreed to invade and get their money right away. More importantly Mexico's Juarez faction had just defeated a conservative faction in a civil war, and said conservatives wanted to bring the French in to establish a monarchy. Napoleon III also wanted to establish a monarchy in Mexico, so this conflict was really a regime change operation. The 3 invading armies were all ashore by January 1862 but wound up in negotiations until April 1862 when negotiations broke down. By April 28 the French were heading for the town of Puebla intending to capture it rapidly on their way to rapidly capture Mexico City. On May 5, the French Army, superior in numbers, training and equipment attacked the two Mexican forts protecting the town of Puebla. They got their ass handed to them and wound up retreating back toward the coast where they sat awaiting reinforcements for a year before returning to the attack. Mexico's victory at Puebla was a huge morale booster for Mexico, its people and fighters, and the government of Benito Juarez ,which continued on as government in exile after Mexico City fell in June of 1863.

The French eventually prevailed and set up a second Empire of Mexico, run by the Archduke Maximillian of Austria as the Empereor of Mexico, but it didn't last very long. Emperor Maximillian took the throne of Mexico on April 10, `1864 and was executed in Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico, on June 19 1867. In the meantime, on May 9. 1862, Benito Juarez had declared the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla to be a National Holiday, and it still is.

On this day in history:

1260 – Kublai Khan became ruler of the Mongol Empire

1494 – Christopher Columbus sighted Jamaica, landied at Discovery Bay and claimed it for Spain

1809 – Mary Kies became the first woman awarded a U.S. paten

1821 – Emperor Napoleon died in exile on the island of Saint Helena

1821 – The first edition of The Manchester Guardian, now The Guardian, was published

1835 – The first railway in continental Europe opened between Brussels and Mechelen.

1862 – Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halted a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico.

1866 – Memorial Day was first celebrated in the United States at Waterloo, New York.

1886 – Workers marching for the Eight-hour day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin were shot at by Wisconsin National Guardsmen

1891 – The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) had its grand opening

1912 – The first issue of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda was published

1920 – Authorities arrested Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder.

1941 – Emperor Haile Selassie returned to Addis Ababa

1946 – The International Military Tribunal for the Far East begias in Tokyo

1955 – The General Treaty, by which France, Britain and the US recognized the sovereignty of West Germany, went into effect.

1961 – Alan Shepard became the first US person to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight

1964 – The Council of Europe declared May 5 as Europe Day.

1987 – The start of Congressional televised hearings into Iran-Contra in the USA

1991 – A riot broke out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, D.C. after police shot a Salvadoran man.

2023 – The World Health Organization declared the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency

Some people who were born on this day:

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.

~~ Karl Marx

1749 – Jean-Frédéric Edelmann, pianist and composer
1813 – Søren Kierkegaard, philosopher and author
1818 – Karl Marx, philosopher, sociologist, and journalist
1830 – John Batterson Stetson, businessman, founded the John B. Stetson Company
1864 – Nellie Bly, journalist and author
1865 – Helen Maud Merrill, litterateur and poet
1869 – Hans Pfitzner, composer and conductor
1882 – Sylvia Pankhurst, women's suffrage movement leader and socialist activist
1883 – Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler, mathematician
1892 – Dorothy Garrod, archaeologist
1898 – Elsie Eaves,engineer
1898 – Blind Willie McTell, Piedmont blues singer and guitar player
1923 – Cathleen Synge Morawetz, mathematician
1932 – Stan Goldberg, illustrator
1937 – Delia Derbyshire, musician, arranger and composer
1942 – Tammy Wynette, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1943 – Michael Palin, actor and screenwriter
1948 – Bill Ward, drummer and songwriter
1950 – Maggie MacNeal, singer
1955 – Jon Butcher, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and freelance multimedia producer
1959 – Bobby Ellsworth, singer and bass player
1959 – Ian McCulloch, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1963 – James LaBrie, singer and songwriter
1966 – Shawn Drover, drummer
1981 – Craig David, singer, songwriter, musician and producer
1988 – Adele, singer and songwriter
1989 – Chris Brown, singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor
1994 – Celeste, singer

Some people who died on this day:

All religions have been made by men.

~~ Napoleon Bonaparte

1821 – Napoleon, general and emperor
1859 – Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, mathematician and academic
1892 – August Wilhelm von Hofmann, chemist and academic
1902 – Bret Harte, short story writer and poet
2002 – Paul Wilbur Klipsch, engineer, founded Klipsch Audio Technologies
2008 – Jerry Wallace, singer and guitarist
2020 – Millie Small, singer and songwriter

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

Cinco de Mayo (Mexico, United States)
Europe Day (Council of Europe)
Indian Arrival Day (Guyana)
International Midwives' Day (International)
Liberation Day (Denmark, Netherlands)
Lusophone Culture Day (Community of Portuguese Language Countries)
World Portuguese Language Day (International)
National Cartoonist Day
Patriots' Victory Day (Ethiopia)
Soviet Press Day (Soviet Union)
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Awareness Day (Canada and United States)

Today's Tunes

Cinco de Mayo

Jean-Frédéric Edelmann

Karl Marx

Nellie Bly

Blind Willie McTell

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Delia Derbyshire

Tammy Wynette

Bill Ward

Maggie MacNeal

Jon Butcher

Adele

Celeste,

Napoleon

Jerry Wallace

Millie Small

Mas Cinco de Mayo

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

open thread, Cinco de Mayo, Kublai Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Karl Marx, Blind Willie McTell, Tammy Wynette,