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The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521 after a long siege of the capital, Tenochtitlan, where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox. Cortés, with 508 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala , and eventually other Aztec tributary states.
The word Aztec in modern usage would not have been used by the people themselves. It has variously been used to refer to the Aztecs or Triple Alliance, the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, or specifically the Mexica ethnicity of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes (from tlaca). [7]
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
The name Aztec was coined by Alexander von Humboldt, who combined Aztlán ("place of the heron"), their mythic homeland, and tec(atl) "people of". [6] The term "Aztec" often today refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan, Mēxihcah Tenochcah, a tribal designation referring only to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, excluding those of ...
Son of Axayacatl (1472–1481). Oversaw a period of centralization and strengthening of the Aztec Empire. Disciplined and highly successful ruler before he made contact with the Spaniards in 1519, whereafter the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire began. [14] [15] c. 1466–1520 (aged 53–54)
In the 1450s, Aztec forces under Moctezuma would invade the Valley of Oaxaca in a bid to extend Aztec hegemony. [17] In about 1458, Moctezuma led an expedition into Mixtec territory against the city-state of Coixtlahuaca. The Mixtecs were defeated, despite the support of contingents of Tlaxcala and Huexotzinco warriors, traditional enemies of ...
During the siege of the city, the sons of Moctezuma were murdered by the Aztecs, possibly because they wanted to surrender. By the following year, the Aztec Empire had fallen to an army of Spanish and their Native American allies, primarily Tlaxcalans, who were traditional enemies of the Aztecs.
The Mexica, the founders and dominant group of the Aztec Empire, were one of the first people in the world to have mandatory education for nearly all children, regardless of gender, rank, or station. [16] Until the age of fourteen, the education of children was in the hands of their parents, but supervised by the authorities of their calpulli ...