page_title: Cinco de Mayo
section_title: Events leading to the Battle of Puebla
hierarchical_section_title: Cinco de Mayo / Background / Events leading to the Battle of Puebla
caption_attribution_description: Español: Anónimo, Batalla del 5 de mayo de 1862, óleo sobre tela, Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones, Exconvento de Churubusco, INAH. Imagen tomada del libro: Eduardo Báez, La pintura militar en el siglo XIX, México, Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional, 1992, p. 102.
context_page_description: Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration held on May 5. The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican Army's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza. The victory of the smaller Mexican force against a larger French force was a boost to morale for the Mexicans. Zaragoza died months after the battle due to illness. A year after the battle, a larger French force defeated the Mexican army at the Second Battle of Puebla, and Mexico City soon fell to the invaders.
  More popularly celebrated in the United States than in Mexico, the date has become associated with the celebration of Mexican-American culture. These celebrations began in California, where they have been observed annually since 1863. The day gained nationwide popularity in the 1980s thanks especially to advertising campaigns by beer and wine companies. Today, Cinco de Mayo generates beer sales on par with the Super Bowl.
  In Mexico, the commemoration of the battle continues to be mostly ceremonial, such as through military parades or battle reenactments.
context_section_description: Cinco de Mayo has its roots in the Second French intervention in Mexico, which took place in the aftermath of the 1846–48 Mexican–American War and the 1858–61 Reform War. The Reform War was a civil war that pitted Liberals (who believed in separation of church and state and freedom of religion) against Conservatives (who favored a tight bond between the Catholic Church and the Mexican state). These wars nearly bankrupted the Mexican Treasury. On July 17, 1861, Mexican President Benito Juárez issued a moratorium in which all foreign debt payments would be suspended for two years. In response, Britain, France, and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz to demand reimbursement. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew, but France, at the time ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to establish an empire in Mexico that would favor French interests, the Second Mexican Empire. The empire was part of an envisioned "Latin America" (term used to imply cultural kinship of the region with France) that would rebuild French influence in the American continent and exclude Anglophone American territories.
caption: Anonymous painting depicting the Battle of Puebla in 1862, located at the Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "An\u00f3nimo, Batalla del 5 de mayo de 1862, \u00f3leo sobre tela, Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones, Exconvento de Churubusco, INAH. Imagen tomada del libro: Eduardo B\u00e1ez, La pintura militar en el siglo XIX, M\u00e9xico, Secretar\u00eda de la Defensa Nacional, 1992, p. 1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:03:25 13:26:32", "Image ExifOffset": "2520", "Image XPTitle": "[65, 0, 110, 0, 243, 0, 110, 0, 105, 0, 109, 0, 111, 0, 44, 0, 32, 0, 66, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5242", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8668", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "615", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "544", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}