Oye..

I nearly missed it..

Merely one last requisite observation before I go to bed:


On this day in 1862, the Mexicans defeated the French at Puebla.

Now, to most American blowhards this may not seem like that big a deal. The French lose, that's what they do. Even to Mexicans.

But this was only 50 years after the Grande Armée had smashed all of Europe and burnt Moscow, and some 80 years after the French had guaranteed American victory over the British at Yorktown, on the very same day that the Army of the Potomac under McClellan was challenging the Confederates on almost that exact same ground on the Virginia coast at the Battle of Williamsburg. All this, a brief half dozen years after the French, British and Ottomans beat the Russians in the Crimea.


Which is merely to say that beating the French in 1862 had very different resonance than it would now, post blitz and colonial collapse..


And that I wholeheartedly love Mexicans, and that because and despite all the insanity that I experienced when I lived with them..


Entonces, hoy necesito decirte,


¡Viva México! ¡Viva Puebla! ¡Viva el 5 de mayo!



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