The Last Aztec
In the early 16th century, the Aztec empire was at the height of its power. The emperor Moctezuma II (also known as Montezuma) ruled from the great imperial city of Tenochtitlan in the Valley of Mexico – site of present-day Mexico City – and collected an unending stream of tribute from neighbouring city-states. Aztec armies were feared. Hundreds of thousands of humans were sacrificed to Aztec gods in elaborate rituals.
It was a civilisation unknown to the Europeans, who were only just beginning to explore the lands they still thought of as ‘Asia’.
Then, in 1519, a Spanish expedition arrived on the coast under the command of Hernán Cortés. With just 400 men, he would penetrate to the heart of the Aztec empire and destroy it.
This website takes you step by step along Cortés’s destructive route through Mexico, until the final debacle at Tenochtitlan.
