On July 17, 1861, with Mexico crippled in a financial crisis, President Benito Juarez signed a law suspending payments to France on debts owed to it. The following November 11, Emperor Napoleon III of France ordered his navy to occupy Mexican port cities on the Gulf until the debts were repaid.
In January of 1862, about 2,500 French troops, the first of a much larger expedition, arrived in Mexico at the port of Vera Cruz. Three months later, on April 19, the first military confrontation between Mexican and French armies occurred. The following day, France declared war on Mexico.
On May 5 (Cinco de Mayo) of 1862, 5,000 French soldiers attacked the City of Puebla (between Vera Cruz and Mexico City) defended by 12,000 Mexican troops, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza. The attack failed and the French were forced to retreat, having suffered 476 casualties, twice as many as their adversaries. Mexicans felt a moment of national pride that is remembered to the present day.
The war continued with more and more French soldiers arriving in Mexico. In 1863, the French again tried to capture Puebla. On May 19, the Mexican Army, badly outnumber, surrendered the city. The invaders then turned their attention to the capital.
On June 3, 1863, the French Army entered Mexico City and proclaimed a Mexican Empire, headed by an Austrian prince, Maximilian, who was told by the French that the majority of the Mexican people wanted him as their ruler. It was really only the Mexican aristocracy that did.
The French Army supported Maximilian against Juarez forces until May of 1866 when Napoleon III (encouraged to do so by the USA after the American Civil War ended) ordered it home. Maximilian was captured and executed in 1867. The war was over.
I think the first time I heard the expression Cinco de Mayo was ten years ago when I was driving down East Franklin Street (near Estes Drive) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and noticed a new restaurant named Cinco de Mayo. I knew it had something to do with Mexico, but I didn't know exactly what.
Cinco de Mayo is celebrated as a significant military victory in the Mexican State of Puebla, but it is not a national Mexican holiday. Mexicans living in the U.S. State of California have been celebrating Cinco de Mayo since 1862 when news of the Mexican defeat of the French first arrived.
In the 1980s, Cinco de Mayo became more popular in the USA when Mexican beer company marketers started using it in their commercials. Since then, Cinco de Mayo has come to represent Mexican culture in the USA. As of 2006, there were more than 150 official Cinco de Mayo events held across the 50 states, especially in areas with high concentrations of Mexican Americans.
Both U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama celebrated Cinco de Mayo at the White House during their entire eight-years there (2001-2016). In 2017 and 2018, President Trump said no.
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