Mexican Independence Day is celebrated every year on the 16th of September, commemorating the 16th of September, 1810. Mexican Independence Day is marked by an assortment of parades, concerts and other patriotic displays. On the eve of the holiday, the Mexican president always reenacts the Grito by ringing the same bell Hidalgo rang from the balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City. Mexican Independence Day celebrates an important date leading up to the war with Spain,  September 16, 1810.  The Grito de Dolores (“the Cry of Dolores,”) created a rallying cry for liberation when a priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang the bell of his church in the town of Dolores and delivered a rousing speech calling the Mexican people to fight against their Spanish rulers. Over a decade of war later, the territory known as New Spain achieved its independence as the Mexican Empire on September 28, 1821.