UPDATES AS OF 9:35 PM PT:  80 dead, 16 critical condition, one police officer dead.  Terrorist investigation HAS been opened. 

Updates:  French police now saying there are at least 70 dead.   

East County News Service

Photo courtesy Eric Gaillard, Reuters

July 14, 2016 (Nice, Fra.) - Today is Bastille Day, the French Fourth of July.  But the celebration was cut short tonight in the city of Nice, a popular tourist destination in France, as a truck accelerated into a crowd of revelers, killing at least 70 and injuring at least 100 people and French authorities say the death toll is rising.  The incident IS being treated as a terrorist attack. 

By Daniel J. Smiechowski

July 15, 2013 (San Diego) --Equivalent to our Independence Day, Bastille Day is the great national holiday of France. In the true Gallic tradition, Bastille Day is also celebrated in America.

Why have we Americans so fervently embraced a foreign holiday of which we know so little about? It is due, perhaps, to the unmistakable joie de vivre we have imported from the French culture. Our thoughts about Bastille Day are not so much an exercise in history, but rather a reflection of the things we view as endemic to the nation of France.