Bastille Day
The "Fête de la Fédération"on 14 July 1790 was a celebration of the unity of the French nation during the French Revolution. The aim of this celebration, one year after the Storming of the Bastille, was to symbolise peace. The event took place on the Champ de Mars, which was located far outside of Paris at the time. The work needed to transform the Champ de Mars into a suitable location for the celebration was not on schedule to be completed in time. On the day recalled as the Journée des brouettes ("The Day of the Wheelbarrow"), thousands of Parisian citizens gathered together to finish the construction needed for the celebration.
Freedom fries
In the March 15, 2003 episode of "Saturday Night Live", Tina Fey reported this on the satirical "Weekend Update": "In a related story, in France, American cheese is now referred to as 'idiot cheese'." The 2006 documentary "Freedom Fries: And Other Stupidity We'll Have to Explain to Our Grandchildren" directed by Carl Christman took a comedic viewpoint on American consumerism and patriotism. In the episode "Stan Knows Best" of "American Dad!", after being asked how his French toast is, the main character Stan remarks: "Smelly and ungrateful! But this American toast is delicious." In the comic strip "Doonesbury", the characters Mark Slackmeyer and Zonker Harris criticized the name change in French. Slackmeyer said that, translated, the U.S. liberated France in World War II; and that many French newspaper headlines after 9/11 were "We are all American". At the end, he states that the anti-French were "jingoistic, self-regarding conquer-monkeys!" The French American indie band Freedom Fry chose their name based on the Freedom Fries phenomenon. In 2005, Robert Plant and his band Strange Sensation released the album "Mighty ReArranger", which contains the track '"Freedom Fries", an anti-war song whose lyrics contains the words "Freedom fries and burns and scars, the liberator goes too far".