Cinco de Mayo: Sticking it to the French

Given that many Americans don’t know their own country’s history, it’s hardly surprising that many in the US have a misconception about the meaning of Cinco de Mayo.

Contrary to what the typical half-cocked hipster downing Corona light will spout off tonight, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day, but rather commemorates the Mexican army’s victory over superior French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

At that time, France’s army had gone nearly five decades without being defeated, and Mexico was actually occupied by France at the time, and would be for another five years.

Cinco de Mayo has limited significance nationwide in Mexico, but the date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage, according to Wikipedia.

Mexican Independence Day is actually Sept. 16, marking the date in 1810 when Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, declared Mexico’s independence from Spain in the town of Dolores.

Muzak says it has enough money to continue

Muzak says it has enough cash “to support the business,” The Charlotte Observer reported.

As it progresses through a bankruptcy filing, Muzak Holdings LLC of Fort Mill, SC, said Monday it has more than $35 million cash on hand.

That compares to about $22 million cash the company had on hand when it filed for bankruptcy protection in February, Chief Financial Officer Dodd Haynes said in an interview with The Observer.

Muzak cited assets of $324 million and liabilities of $465 million when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Muzak intends to file a reorganization plan with the bankruptcy court by mid-June, Haynes said. The company said it is continuing to maintain normal operations, reduce costs and improve service.

Muzak, which relocated to Fort Mill from Seattle in 2000, had 1,250 employees, including 350 in Fort Mill, when it filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year.

The company designs and installs professional sound systems for businesses, and provides other services, such as promotional music for corporate branding.

Unknown dead from WWI to be identified

An English family is holding out hope that the body of a family member killed nearly a century ago may finally have been recovered.

Joseph Henry Humphries, a native of England who served in the First Australian Imperial Force, was believed killed in the Battle of Fromelles in France on July 19, 1916, then buried in mass grave with as many as 400 other Allied soldiers.

“It’s amazing to think that he could be lying there, alongside all those he fought with,” Maureen Eden, Humphries’ great-niece, told The Times. “It’s hard to put into words. It’s so sad, because my great-uncle’s parents never found out what happened to him. His wife lived to the age of 93 without ever knowing what became of her husband’s body.”

German troops buried the Allied dead after the battle, laying the bodies with dignity, arranging them in neat rows, wrapped individually in groundsheets, according to The Times.

The mass grave was discovered last year and DNA testing is being done to try and identify those interred.

More than 5,500 men from the 5th Australian Division were killed, wounded or listed as missing in just 24 hours of action. German losses were approximately 1,500 killed or wounded.

The Battle of Fromelles was fought at the same time as the better-known Battle of the Somme, which raged about 50 miles to the south. The battle was the first occasion in which the First Australian Imperial Force saw action on the Western Front.

Regarded as a total failure, the battle is described as “the worst 24 hours in Australia’s entire history.”

Interestingly, it is believed that one of the German soldiers involved in the battle was Adolf Hitler, then a 27-year-old corporal and a message runner in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, according to Wikipedia.

Nearly a century after World War I, the bodies of more than 165,000 Commonwealth soldiers are still missing, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Georgia leading nation in bank failures

Georgia leads the nation in bank failures, thanks in part to antiquated state laws that restricted branching for decades.

Over the past year, 11 Georgia banks have been shut down by regulators. That’s two more than the next closest state, California, even though California has nearly four times Georgia’s population.

South Carolina hasn’t had a bank failure in 10 years and North Carolina’s had just one, Cape Fear Bank.

Georgia’s high number of failures is the result of several factors, experts say, including a combination of an antiquated state law that favored a plethora of smaller community banks over multi-branch giants; a population explosion in metro Atlanta that fueled massive suburban real estate development and a crush of new banks formed to cash in on the Atlanta boom shortly before the market tanked, according to an Associated Press report.

Georgia didn’t allow banks from opening branches across county lines until 1996. And with 159 counties in the state, that means there was a need for a lot of small banks. As a result, Georgia has the sixth-most banks in the country, 334 as of the end of 2008, according to The Associated Press.

Georgia banks that have failed since the start of the year are: Silverton Bank, Atlanta; American Southern Bank, Kennesaw; Omni National Bank, Atlanta; FirstCity Bank, Stockbridge; Freedom Bank of George, Commerce; and FirstBank, McDonough.