Do You Know The Meaning Of Cinco De Mayo?

In the same thinking that makes people use St. Patrick's Day as just an excuse to drink Guinness, an awful lot of people will be enjoying margaritas and Mexican beer tonight with no idea what they're actually celebrating.

If you ask people on the street, not many of them know exactly what they're celebrating (in fact, Jimmy Kimmel found out that a scary amount of people don't even know when Cinco De Mayo is).

A lot of people may say that it's Mexico's Independence Day, but that's not the case (their Independence Day is September 16).

So what does Cinco De Mayo actually celebrate? It's the day that the Mexican army won an unlikely victory against French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. You could kind of think of it like how we think of Normandy or Gettysburg - pivotal, significant battles that turned the tides of a war.

The French eventually withdrew from Mexico, a significant victory for Mexico.

So as you're celebrating Cinco De Mayo with friends tonight, you can be the smartest person in the room when someone says that it's Mexico's Independence Day and you school them on the Battle of Puebla.