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The City-State in the Basin of Mexico: The Late Prehispanic Period. pp. 463–470. Davies, Nigel (1973). The Aztecs: A History. University of Oklahoma Press. Evans, Susan T. (2008). Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History, 2nd edition. Thames & Hudson, New York. ISBN 978-0-500-28714-9. Hassig, Ross (1988).
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 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.
Because markets were so numerous, in large cities reaching upwards of 20,000 people, the organization was crucial, and the Aztecs were able to create a successful market due to the success of enforcing the laws of the empire.
The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, became Mexico City, the chief city of the "New Spain". More than an estimated 240,000 Aztecs died during the siege of Tenochtitlan , 100,000 in combat, [ 28 ] while 500–1,000 of the Spaniards engaged in the conquest died.
In 1446, a swarm of locusts destroyed the region's crops [13] In 1449, Lake Texcoco flooded the city. [5] In 1450, a frost and drought again destroyed the region's crops. These droughts and frosts continued for four years. [13] The famines resulted in some selling their children [5] or themselves [13] into slavery, and the city lost most of its ...
The Conquest of Mexico ISBN 0-091-77629-5; (US title) Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico (1993) ISBN 0-671-51104-1; White, Jon Manchip. Cortés and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire (1971) ISBN 0-7867-0271-0; Ward, Thomas. Formation of Latin American Nations. From Late Antiquity to Early Modernity. University of Oklahoma ...
At their peak, the Valley of Mexico where the Aztec Empire presided, saw a population growth that included nearly one million people during the late Aztec period (1350–1519). [ 57 ] Their capital, Tenochtitlan , is the site of modern-day Mexico City .