Wannaskan Almanac for Saturday, May 5th

It's Cinco de Mayo over here at the Wannaskan Almanac!

On Tuesday, Mark Hamill kicked off the month of May, tweeting, May The First Be With You. This was followed by:

May The Second Be Better
May The Third Be Absurd

And on Friday, he improvised:

May The Fourth Be With [YOUR NAME HERE]

It appears he "may" keep this up all month.

However, not every day in May is for Star Wars fans. Today we give a shout-out to commemorate a little Mexican militia for defeating French forces in a surprising victory on May 5, 1862 at the Battle of Puebla.

Here's a synopsis: (credits: History channel website)

In 1861, Benito Juárez—a lawyer and member of the indigenous Zapotec tribe—was elected president of Mexico. At the time, the country was in financial ruin after years of internal strife, and the new president was forced to default on debt payments to European governments.

In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz, Mexico, demanding repayment. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew their forces.

France, however, ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to carve an empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large force of troops and driving President Juárez and his government into retreat.

Certain that success would come swiftly, 6,000 French troops under General Charles Latrille de Lorencez set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. From his new headquarters in the north, Juárez rounded up a ragtag force of 2,000 loyal men—many of them either indigenous Mexicans or of mixed ancestry—and sent them to Puebla.

The vastly outnumbered and poorly supplied Mexicans, led by Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza, fortified the town and prepared for the French assault. On May 5, 1862, Lorencez gathered his army—supported by heavy artillery—before the city of Puebla and led an assault. The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, and when the French finally retreated they had lost nearly 500 soldiers. Fewer than 100 Mexicans had been killed in the clash.

Although not a major strategic win in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza’s success at the Battle of Puebla on May 5 represented a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government and bolstered the resistance movement. In 1867—thanks in part to military support and political pressure from the United States, which was finally in a position to aid its besieged neighbor after the end of the Civil War—France finally withdrew.

The same year, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who had been installed as emperor of Mexico in 1864 by Napoleon, was captured and executed by Juárez’s forces. Puebla de Los Angeles was renamed for General Zaragoza, who died of typhoid fever months after his historic triumph there.

That's the cliff notes version of this momentous occasion and holiday.

Ignacio Zargoza

For a much more fun and colorful explanation of The Battle of Puebla, check out the Ignacio Zaragoza feature over at the blog Badass of the Week. (If only all history lessons could be taught this way. And Zaragoza really does look like Stephen Colbert. NOTE: Lots of profanity but makes the telling quite lively.)

So what's the deal today?

Honestly, this isn't much of a national Mexican holiday. It's recognized in the state of Puebla, but otherwise, it doesn't get bank-closing celebratory status. In the U.S., it's an opportunity for Mexican-Americans and those interested in Mexican culture and heritage to come together for parades, parties, mariachi music, Mexican folk dancing and traditional foods such as tacos and mole poblano.

One last comment, today is not Mexico's independence day. Día de la Independencia is commemorated on September 16, the anniversary of the revolutionary priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s famous “Grito de Dolores” (“Cry of Dolores”), a call to arms that amounted to a declaration of war against the Spanish colonial government in 1810. (NOTE: September 16 is also my wedding anniversary.)

And other news...

On This Day

1821 - Since I mentioned him last week, on this day, Napoleon Bonaparte died on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. He was kept there from October 1815 until May 5th, 1821.

1891 - Carnegie Hall, originally called Music Hall, has it's official opening in New York City with a concert conducted by maestro Walter Damrosch and composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

1921 - Chanel introduced "Chanel Number 5" to some of her friends. Initially, it was given to preferred clients for free at her boutique. The fitting rooms in her boutique were also scented with No. 5. Jasmine was the most expensive perfume oil and Chanel No. 5 relies heavily on Jasmine.

1945 - A Japanese balloon bomb exploded at Mitchell Recreation Area on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, killing the pregnant wife of a minister and five children. This is the only recorded instants of deaths caused by Japanese Bombs on the American mainland in World War II.

1961 - Alan B. Shepard Jr became the first American in space after soaring 115 miles above the earth in a spacecraft named Freedom 7.

2002 - French President Jacques Chirac is re-elected in a victory over extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. (NOTE: Le Pen's daughter, Marine, became the leader of the National Front party in 2011. She was that party’s candidate in the 2017 French presidential election.)

2005 - Tony Blair wins historic third term in government for the British Labour Party.

2009 - Feminist icon, Marilyn French, died of heart failure at the age of seventy-nine in New York. The writer of "The Women's Room" had been working on a new novel and a memoir before her death. (NOTE: I have read this book.)

2010 - Cuba allows tourism investment.

2013 - In Brazil, Paul McCartney performs Beatles songs.

Happy Birthday to You!🎶 

Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Adele and Hank Green all share a birthday!

1747 – Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1792)
1749 – Jean-Frédéric Edelmann, French pianist and composer (d. 1794)
1813 – Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher and author (d. 1855)
1818 – Karl Marx, German philosopher, sociologist, and journalist (d. 1883)
1826 – Eugénie de Montijo, French wife of Napoleon III (d. 1920) (Note: Yes, that guy responsible for the Battle of Puebla!)
1830 – John Batterson Stetson, American businessman, founded the John B. Stetson Company (d. 1906)
1832 – Hubert Howe Bancroft, American ethnologist and historian (d. 1918)
1833 – Ferdinand von Richthofen, German geographer and academic (d. 1905)
1834 – Viktor Hartmann, Russian painter and architect (d. 1873)
1846 – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish journalist and author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1916)
1864 – Nellie Bly, American journalist and author (d. 1922)
1865 – Helen Maud Merrill, American litterateur and poet (d. 1943)
1869 – Fabián de la Rosa, Filipino painter and educator (d. 1937)
1869 – Hans Pfitzner, German composer and conductor (d. 1949)
1890 – Christopher Morley, American journalist and author (d. 1957)
1898 – Blind Willie McTell, American Piedmont blues singer and guitar player (d. 1959)
1905 – Floyd Gottfredson, American author and illustrator (d. 1986)
1906 – Charles Exbrayat, French author and screenwriter (d. 1989)
1907 – Iryna Vilde, Ukrainian journalist and author (d. 1982)
1909 – Miklós Radnóti, Hungarian poet and author (d. 1944)
1911 – Andor Lilienthal, Russian-Hungarian chess player (d. 2010)
1921 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
1922 – Irene Gut Opdyke, Polish nurse and humanitarian (d. 2003)
1936 – Ervin Lázár, Hungarian author (d. 2006)
1939 – Ray Gosling, English journalist, author, and activist (d. 2013)
1940 – Lance Henriksen, American actor
1942 – István Bujtor, Hungarian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2009)
1942 – Tammy Wynette, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1998)
1944 – John Rhys-Davies, Welsh actor and screenwriter
1944 – Roger Rees, Welsh-American actor and director (d. 2015)
1945 – Kurt Loder, American journalist, author, and critic
1955 – Jon Butcher, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and freelance multimedia producer
1959 – Steve Stevens, American guitarist and songwriter
1961 – Hiroshi Hase, Japanese wrestler and politician
1962 – Kaoru Wada, Japanese composer and conductor
1963 – James LaBrie, Canadian singer-songwriter
1963 – Simon Rimmer, English chef and author
1963 – Scott Westerfeld, American author and composer
1967 – Alexis Sinduhije, Burundian journalist and politician
1980 – Hank Green, American entrepreneur, educator, and vlogger - Woohoo!
1983 – Henry Cavill, English actor
1988 – Adele, English singer-songwriter



Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Kim