Western Civilization I / Unit 16 WC1 1511 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Cortes and the Fall of Tenochtitlan, 1519 to 1521
Captions available
The idea
Cortes landed in fifteen nineteen with the anchor's four hundred fifty men and fifteen horses, took Malinche as interpreter, allied with the Tlaxcalans, witness-named subjects of the Aztecs, seized Moctezuma, and after siege and smallpox took Tenochtitlan in August fifteen twenty-one.
In practice
The anchor's surrender by fifteen twenty-two is recorded.
Where people slip
Alliance and epidemic, not Spanish numbers, explain it.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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