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5th of may, or as it is called in Mexico, Cinco de mayo, or La batalla de Puebla

It is a day that is celebrated by most Mexicans, Mexican-Americans and other people from El Caribbe, Australia, Canada, England, Spain and even some parts of Paris, France.

What happened that day?

Well, let me give you a little more background. Mexico went trough a series of wars after it got its independence from spain that started on september 16, 1810 and ended on september 27, 1821.
Then came the Mexican-American war of 1846-1848, the mexican civil war of 1858, and the 1860 Reform wars. This wars basically left the Mexican treasury bankrupt, and on july 17, 1861 the mexican
president of that time named Benito Juarez issued a moratorium in which all foreign debt payments would be suspended for two years.
Of course, this left the English, spaniards and french mad. So all of the 3 countries decided to send troops and politicians to Veracruz, to demand reimbursements. Britain and Spain negotiated with the Mexicans and withdrew.
But the French decided that is was a great idea to start a Latin empire in the Americas or New world that would benefit France by using Mexico. So thus the Second Mexican Empire would start.

On late 1861, the French army attacked Veracruz, and from there on started to go towards Mexico city, the capital. They found little to no resistance until they hit the city of Puebla. There, led by general ignacio zaragoza, about 4500-5000 Mexicans mostly armed with
rocks and farming equipment, some of them had guns, but not enough to defeat a well equiped army, fought the French that had 8000-10,000 well equiped men.




The Battle started on May 5th 1861, and ended the same day. The battle lasted for about 2 hours; the Mexicans crushed the well equiped French, and there was around 800 French casualties and from the Mexican side about 400 casualties. The number of casualties are different to some people, since some sources give different casualty number.

Although this battle didnt finished the war with the French, it reunited all the Mexicans and gave the Mexican army a boost in morale.

A year later 30,000 Frech troops invaded mexico and took over Mexico. Then Mexico was declared the New French Empire. But it lasted for about 3 years, when the Mexican resistence got to recapture Mexico city, and most of the French troops retreat back to France. Maximillian I got capture and executed. Then the current president at that time, Benito Juarez reinstalled his government.

This battle was and is very special because it was the last time that an european nation set foot upon the new world(with the exeption of the second french invasion a year later) with the intention of conquering or making new colonies.










Note: Not all of the information i gave you is correct, like i said, the information varies from person to person. I made this article to provide more information for the actual japanese people that play in ejapan, so please, dont make any harsh comments and thnx for reading. o.o./