Here in the USA, folks are getting ready to celebrate Cinco De Mayo, which many believe has something to do with Mexican Independence Day.  They're wrong.  Mexican Independence Day is September 15.  So what the heck is Cinco De Mayo (which isn't a national holiday in Mexico)?  And why do Americans celebrate it?

The Battle of the Puebla occurred on May 5.  Known to some as The Pastry War, it was ignited when an indignant French chef demanded some 60 thousand pesos because Mexican military officers (corrupt, even back then) had been looting his pastry supplies.  Therefore, on April 16, 1838, the French initiated a naval blocakade of east-coast Mexican ports.  This action initiated a war.  After losing the Battle of the Puebla, the French gave up and went away (surrender monkeys that they were, even then).  Mexico celebrated, then pretty much forgot about it.

In an impassioned speech at the recent Democrat convention in San Diego, Mrs. Clinton remininced about her childhood in Illinois.  She claimed that immigrants came up each year from Mexico, following the harvests, that their children went to school with "us", and that on weekends, she and her fellow church members would baby-sit the younger kids so that the older kids could join their parents in the fields.

Heart-warming.  And utterly false.  Mrs. Clinton, in fact, grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois - a wealthy subdivision abutting the central city of Chicago, and there were no fields anywhere near her.