One hundred years ago this month, a law that few Mexicans today have probably ever heard of set off one of the bloodiest and strangest conflicts in the country’s history — the Cristero War. 

In ancient Greece, the quince was known as the sacred fruit of the Goddess Aphrodite, a symbol of love, sweetness, fertility and prosperity.

The grisly crocodile attack June 25 in front of the Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort has provoked morbid fascination, platitudes by hotels, lists of rules, and a flurry of reported croc sightings and educational material. The basics of the incident — a four-meter-long reptile lunging at and dragging off a 28-year-old tourist taking photos at a popular beach — fly in the face of PV’s fun-in-the-sun ambiance.

The CIA has been accused of many dubious interventions over its nearly 80-year history, but one conspiracy theory from the 1970 World Cup in Mexico stands out for its sheer audacity.

Around 1,000 B.C. — roughly 1,000 years after the first permanent villages appeared in Mexico — a wave of fierce, misshapen strangers arrived. Squat, snarling, with elongated slanted heads and filed, fang-like teeth, they frightened and dominated the early farmers of south-central Mexico.

July Fourth and I have an uneasy friendship that I find strikingly similar to the feelings of many other Americans living in Mexico. And this weekend’s 250th anniversary of America’s founding only brings that complicated relationship into high relief.