Good morning, Whitewater.
Whitewater’s Tuesday will be rainy with a high of fifty-five. Sunrise is 5:42 and sunset 8:00, for 14h 17m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets today at 6:15 PM, and Common Council at 6:30 PM.
Batalla de Puebla, 5 de mayo de 1862. Via Wikipedia.
Happy Cinco de Mayo, a day that not only commemorates a Mexican victory over France’s Napoleon III, but also a victory that likely aided the Union against the Confederacy:
Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for “fifth of May”) is a celebration held on May 5. It is celebrated in the United States[1] and in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla,[note 1][2][3][4] where the holiday is called El Día de la Batalla de Puebla(English: The Day of the Battle of Puebla).[5][6][7] Mexican Americans also often see the day as a source of pride; one way they can honor their ethnicity is to celebrate this day.[8]
The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army‘s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín.[3][9] In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is sometimes mistaken to be Mexico’s Independence Day—the most important national holiday in Mexico—which is celebrated on September 16.[3][10]
….Donald W. Miles states, “At the time, there were fears in the United States that the French would use Mexico as a base to back the Confederacy, so President Lincoln and his Secretary of State went out of their way to appear ‘neutral’ in the Mexican situation. They did not want to take on the French and the Confederates at the same time”.[30] Dr. Miles goes on to explain that “Napoleon III had hesitated to take on the United States directly, but now the news of the Civil War changed everything”.[31] It meant that the Americans would be occupied with their Civil War for some time. Upon hearing the Spaniards and the British had sailed off to grab the customs house in Veracruz to start collecting their duties, Napoleon decided he would not only send the French navy, but would also start looking for someone to place as emperor in Mexico. He would then use Mexico as a base to help the Confederates win their war against the Union. Napoleon saw this as an opportunity not to be missed.[31]
Historian Justo Sierra has written in his Political Evolution of the Mexican People, that had Mexico not defeated the French in Puebla on May 5, 1862, France would have gone to the aid of the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War and the United States’ destiny would have been different.[32][33]
Ignacio Gonzalez wrote, “Some scholars, including José Antonio Burciaga, believe that had the French defeated México at Puebla, France would have aided the South in the American Civil War in order to free Southern ports of the Union Blockade. During this time, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was enjoying success, and French intervention could have had an impact on the Civil War.”[21]
Mexico and the United States are both better for Napoleon III’s defeat on 5.5.1862.
Here’s the second day of Puzzability‘s Maternity Test series:
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This Week’s Game — May 4-8
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Maternity Test
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There’s a bit of a generation gap this Mother’s Day week. Each day’s clue is a series of words, each with one letter replaced by a dash. Fill in the missing letters to make a word—one way to get the first (or only) name of a famous mother, real or fictional, and another way to get the name of a child of hers.
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Example:
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SIDE-AR / BL-CKHEAD / A-OUND / O-LONG / -EARNING
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Answer:
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Carol & Bobby (Brady)
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What to Submit:
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Submit the two first names, with the mother first (as “Carol & Bobby” in the example), for your answer.
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Tuesday, May 5
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