Let's file this under the "we learn something new" everyday file.
This is a great story for today, our President's Day in the US.
Also, you may want to forward this one to a friend from Paraguay!
Pres. Rutherford Hayes was the 19th president of the US and the winner of the 1876 election.
What's the big deal about that? It was a hotly contested election settled by a congressional commission. Move over Gore v Bush!
Beyond that, Pres Hayes is one of those presidents that we don't read a lot about.
Why do they love Pres Hayes in Paraguay, a country way down in South America?
"Forget Lincoln or Washington. Hayes — a one-term U.S. president who is undistinguished at home — has a holiday, a province, a town, a museum and a soccer team all named in his honor, thanks to an 1878 arbitration in which he handed Paraguay 60 percent of its land.
"If it weren't for Hayes, Paraguay would have a smaller territory than it has today," said Salvador Garozzo, director of the municipal museum in the town of Villa Hayes, capital of Presidente Hayes province."
That's new information for me.
So let's remember Pres Hayes and the wonderful nation of Paraguay with "Recuerdos de Ypacarai", a song about Ypacarai Lake.
This is one of my favorite songs from the Latin American repertoire.
This song is performed by Los Panchos, the greatest of all Spanish music trios:
No comments:
Post a Comment