One of the most interesting empires of America. The
Aztecs (at that time called the
Mexicas) arrived in the valley where we today find
Mexico City in the year
1253. As they didn't find any un
ocuppied land, they were
forced to work as
warrior slaves for the other tribes there. They
proved to be very efficient at this task - once bringing 4,000
ears back from a battle as a present to their masters - just to prove that they'd won the
battle. They
managed to break free from their
masters and take over
another part of the
valley and founded
Tenochtitlan in
1325.
The first king was en
throned in
1375 - and from this date on, the
warfare of the Aztecs escalated. In just a
hundred years, the entire valley was under their control. In
1487 the great
temple of Tenochtitlan was
finished and about 20,000 people were
sacrificed in three days to mark the
occasion - all of them having their
heart ripped out while still
alive. (The rate of this is
comparable to 6 millions in five years - anybody say
WWII?- but was
performed by only a
handful of
priests -
estimations give a
killing rate of one priest killing one man every 10 seconds.)
Just as quick as its rise was its
downfall - in just one year, a very weak
Spanish force lead by
Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan that at the time had more than 200,000
inhabitants. The king at that time,
Moctezuma II was sure that Cortes was the
returning god,
Quetzalcoatl. This made Moctezuma more or less
surrender and also
paralyzed him from doing anything about being
captured and
watching his people
getting killed - which in the end his own people kill him.
With the
destruction of the
capital, the
empire dissolved
completely leaving almost no
evidence of what was once
the greatest city of the entire world - going to the main square of
Mexico City gives you an idea though.