It seems everywhere you look right now they are selling Mexican flags and memorabilia. September 16th is Mexico's Independence Day. This day marks Mexico's declaration of independence from Spain in 1810. Fiestas and reveling will abound, and the grito (cry) of independence will sound.

On this day 198 years ago the Mexican people declared war on the Spanish colonial authorities. At the head of this uprising was a Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla who didn't agree with how the foreign land owners, aristocrats, and politicians were managing the country. He and other conspirators started the war, calling the peasants to battle, by ringing the bells of the church and crying the famous (and no longer remembered) grito or battle cry. The grito has been reported to be something like: "Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe [a symbol of the Amerindians' faith], death to bad government, and death to the gachupines [the Spaniards]!"

Hidalgo later regretted the bloodbath he had incited with his fateful grito. When he made his hasty decision in the pre-dawn hours of September 16, he had not foreseen the mass slaughter of Spaniards. Before the revolutionary troops descended upon Mexico City, Hidalgo retreated with only a few associates to where it all began in Dolores, where he would be executed by the Gachupines only a year later. Another priest named Jose Maria Morelos took up the fight after Hidalgo's retreat and execution, but he was also killed in battle. Finally the Mexican born Spanish and the Roman Catholic Church continued the war and eventually defeated Spain. On September 27, 1821 Mexico's independence was finally recognized by the Spanish crown.

President Felipe Calderon will reenact the event that started this war on September 15 in the plaza of the Zocalo, one of the largest public plazas in the world. Ringing the bells and reciting the grito as half a million people watch and echo the words.

This didn't mark the end of problems and war in the country though. Later there was another revolution from 1910-1920. But that's a story for another time.

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