Cinco de Mayo

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 No, Cinco de Mayo isn’t Mexican Independence Day. It commemorates the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, when 4,000 Mexican troops held off an advance by 8,000 French troops seeking to fulfill the dream of Emperor Napoleon III essentially to turn Mexico into a French colony.

Nor did the battle of Puebla prevent this outcome. A French expeditionary force eventually captured Mexico City and installed the Austrian archduke Maximillian as emperor of Mexico on April 10, 1864.
The battle is nonetheless credited with obliging Napoleon III to send 30,000 reinforcements; with delaying the outcome by a year; and as a result, sharply limiting the opportunity for the French to intervene on the side of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, then raging north of the border.
Yet the battle of Puebla isn’t even a Mexican national holiday, either. It’s primarily a Mexican-American expression of pride—has been ever since 1863, and with the passage of time has become more so.
Over time, Cinco de Mayo has transcended its Mexican-American origins to become an overall American day of celebration, so to speak, primarily driven by the beer industry, particularly Corona and Modelo. (Modelo Especial, btw, is now the best-selling beer in the United States. Year-round, not just on Cinco de Mayo.)

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