Educating Ogre

Last week was Cinco de Mayo, and in celebration, some folks were pointing at some web sites with trite little facts about how the Mexicans triumphed over the French and that's why Cinco de Mayo.

Well, that's all cute and good, but really it misses the much, much more interesting story about how the whole thing was intertwined with the U.S. Civil War, and especially about how Mexico ended up with an Emperor who didn't want the job but took it because his wife wanted to be an Emperess.

Anyway, I wrote up the page, and sent it around to a half dozen or so friends, and a couple of them suggested I start a blog. My initial reaction was, "who wants to hear about my boring life?" I'm pretty sure I'm right on that -- nobody does. But at least once a week I usually either run across something really interesting while looking something up, or have a chance to show off some piece of random knowledge I picked up somewhere. Now, that someone might want to read.

So I'll put it here.

-- Rorgg

P.S. Emperess Carlotta left Mexico shortly before her husband was captured and shot. She kept calling herself "Emperess" though.