The Cry of Dolores

Before dawn on 16 September 1810 the priest Miguel Hidalgo rang the bell of his parish church and called his congregation to rise against Spanish rule. Nobody wrote down exactly what he said; what mattered was that several hundred people followed him out of the village.

Within weeks the rising numbered tens of thousands. Hidalgo was captured and executed the following year, and independence took eleven more. The president of Mexico repeats the cry from a balcony every 15 September.