Many will recognize today as being Cinco de Mayo, the fifth of May. Most recognize that it’s an important day for Mexico and the Mexican people, but many are surprised at the real reason this day is celebrated.

Cinco de Mayo is not a celebration of Mexican Independence Day.

Mexico actually declared its independence from Spain in September 1810, according to several sources I found.

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Cinco de Mayo is celebrated to commemorate a great victory, when 4,000 to 5,000 Mexican soldiers defeated an army of 8,000 French, and some traitorous Mexicans, in a battle at Puebla, Mexico, about 100 miles east of Mexico City, on May 5, 1862.

The French had reportedly come to Mexico five months earlier under the guise of collecting debts owed by the newly elected government of Mexico under then President Benita Juarez.

England and Spain had sent troops as well, but made deals for the money owed and left.

The French were under the rule of Emperor Napoleon and it looked like they planned to stay and take over Mexico.

The U.S. was involved in its own Civil War, and Mexico was weak, after having not long before come out of its own civil war.

The Mexicans were undermanned and underequipped compared to what was supposedly a strong French force. But they defeated the French in what was then called “Batalla de Puebla” on the fifth of May.

Some of the sources I saw said Cinco de Mayo is a bigger deal in the U.S. than in Mexico and of course it’s very commercialized, targeting U.S. consumers to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas and Mexican beers.

Clearly the battle on this day maintained or at least protected Mexico’s Independence but it’s technically not Mexican Independence Day.

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I wrote in my last Sweet Talk about all the inaccurate stories and urban legends spread by e-mails. What’s also interesting is the continuous collections of interesting quotes that get shared in this same way.

Among some quotes worth quoting again from a recent item sent to me by a Sweet Talk reader, apparently gleaned from signs posted around the country:

• Beauty is only a light switch away — posted in the Perkins Library at Duke University.

• If life is a waste of time, and time is a waste of life, then let’s all get wasted together and have the time of our lives — from Armand’s Pizza in Washington, D.C.

• It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere — written in the dust on the back of a bus in Wickenburg, Ariz.

• If pro is opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress? Congress! — from a men’s restroom in the U.S. House of Representatives.

• You’re too good for him — sign over a mirror in women’s restroom at Ed Debevic’s, Beverly Hills, Calif.

• No wonder you always go home alone — sign over mirror in men’s restroom at Ed Debevic’s, Beverly Hills, Calif.

WILL CHAPMAN is publisher of The Daily Iberian.