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Cuitláhuac was released on the pretense to reopen the market to get food to the invaders. Moctezuma was killed under disputed circumstances (some say he died in prison), and Cuitláhuac was elected tlatoani following the flight of the Spaniards and their allies from Tenochtitlan on June 30, 1520. Some sources claim he was serving in that role ...
La Noche Triste ("The Night of Sorrows", literally "The Sad Night"), officially re-branded in Mexico as La Noche Victoriosa [2] ("The Victorious Night"), was an important event during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, wherein Hernán Cortés, his army of Spanish conquistadors, and their native allies were driven out of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.
It is said that the Aztec god, Huitzilopochtli, instructed the Aztecs to found their city at the location where they saw an eagle, on a cactus, with a snake in its talons (which is on the current Mexican flag). The Aztecs, apparently, saw this vision on the small island where Tenochtitlan was founded.
The Aztecs performed ritual self-sacrifice (also called autosacrifice or blood-letting) on a daily basis. [17] The Aztecs believed that Huitzilopochtli needed daily nourishment (tlaxcaltiliztli) in the form of human blood and hearts and that they, as “people of the sun,” were required to provide Huitzilopochtli with his sustenance. [18]
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 ...
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 word "Aztec" was derived from the Nahuatl aztecah, meaning "people from Aztlán." Aztlán is mentioned in several ethnohistorical sources dating from the colonial period, and while each cites varying lists of the different tribal groups who participated in the migration from Aztlán to central Mexico , the Mexica who later founded Mexico ...