Mexico celebrates March 21 as the birthday of which national hero?

Benito Pablo Juárez García (21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Mexican lawyer, liberal politician and president who held power during the decade of the Liberal Reform and French invasion. He is considered one of the most important leaders of the Mexican Republic and also is especially honored for his resistance against the puppet empire imposed by the French Emperor Napoleon III during the time of the American Civil War. When the Civil War ended the United States supported Juárez in ousting the French-imposed regime. ("Garcia" was his mother's maiden surname.)

Juárez maintained that he was the legitimate head of the Mexican state, rather than Emperor Maximilian. The French-backed Second Mexican Empire fell in 1867 and the Mexican Republic with Juárez as president was restored to full power. He is honored as a hero of self-determination for Latin-American nations, ranking him alongside Simon Bolivar and Bernardo O'Higgins, leaders of independence movements in South America.

Juárez is revered as a symbol of Mexican nationalism and resistance to foreign intervention. He understood the importance of a working relationship with the United States, which supported his resistance against Maximilian.The place of Juárez in Mexican historical memory has enshrined him as a major Mexican hero, and his birthday (March 21) is a national public and patriotic holiday in Mexico, the only individual Mexican so honored.