Cuauhtémoc, also known as Cuauhtemotzín, Guatimozín, or Guatémoc, was the Aztec ruler (tlatoani) of Tenochtitlan from 1520 to 1521, making him the last Aztec Emperor. The name Cuauhtemōc means "one who has descended like an eagle", and is commonly rendered in English as "Descending Eagle", as in the moment when an eagle folds its wings and plummets down to strike its prey. This is a name that implies aggressiveness and determination.
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Mexico City is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. Mexico City is one of the most important cultural and financial centers in the world. It is located in the Valley of Mexico within the high Mexican central plateau, at an altitude of 2,240 meters (7,350 ft). The city has 16 boroughs or demarcaciones territoriales, which are in turn divided into neighborhoods or colonias.
Moteuczoma Xocoyotzin, referred to retroactively in European sources as Moctezuma II, was the ninth Emperor of the Aztec Empire, reigning from 1502 or 1503 to 1520. Through his marriage with Queen Tlapalizquixochtzin of Ecatepec, one of his two wives, he was also king consort of that altepetl.
Tenochtitlan, also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican altepetl in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the city. The city was built on an island in what was then Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. The city was the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire in the 15th century until it was captured by the Tlaxcaltec and the Spanish in 1521.
The Aztecs 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. Aztec culture was organized into city-states (altepetl), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Mexica or Tenochca, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahua polities or peoples of central Mexico in the prehispanic era, as well as the Spanish colonial era (1521–1821). The definitions of Aztec and Aztecs have long been the topic of scholarly discussion ever since German scientist Alexander von Humboldt established its common usage in the early 19th century.
The State of Mexico, officially just Mexico, is one of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Commonly known as Edomex to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is the most populous, as well as the most densely populated, state in the country.
The history of Mexico City stretches back to its founding ca. 1325 CE as the Mexica city-state of Tenochtitlan, which evolved into the senior partner of the Aztec Triple Alliance that dominated central Mexico immediately prior to the Spanish conquest of 1519–1521. At its height, Tenochtitlan had enormous temples and palaces, a huge ceremonial center, and residences of political, religious, military, and merchants. Its population was estimated at least 100,000 and perhaps as high as 200,000 in 1519 when the Spaniards first saw it. During the final stage of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Spanish forces and their indigenous allies besieged and razed Tenochtitlan. Because it was strategically and politically important, invader Hernán Cortés founded the Spanish colonial capital of Mexico City on its ruins, becoming the center of Spanish colonial power. Following Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico City became the capital of the sovereign nation, remaining its largest and most important city to the present day.
The Nahuas are one of the Indigenous people of Mexico, with Nahua minorities also in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico. They are a Mesoamerican ethnicity. The Mexica (Aztecs) are of Nahua ethnicity, as are their historical enemies, the Tlaxcallans (Tlaxcaltecs). The Toltecs which predated both groups are often thought to have been Nahua as well. However, in the pre-Columbian period Nahuas were subdivided into many groups that did not necessarily share a common identity.
The Mexican Catholic Church, or Catholic Church in Mexico, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, his Curia in Rome and the national Mexican Episcopal Conference. According to the Mexican census, Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion in Mexico, practiced by 77.7% of the population in 2020. A Statistica survey suggests this number could be lower, suggesting Catholics could make up only 72% of the nation.
Classical Nahuatl is any of the variants of Nahuatl spoken in the Valley of Mexico and central Mexico as a lingua franca at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. During the subsequent centuries, it was largely displaced by Spanish and evolved into some of the modern Nahuan languages in use today. Although classified as an extinct language, Classical Nahuatl has survived through a multitude of written sources transcribed by Nahua peoples and Spaniards in the Latin script.
Ciudad Hidalgo, or simply Hidalgo, is a city and municipal seat of the Municipality of Hidalgo in the far northeast of the state of Michoacán, Mexico. It is a city located in a rural, mountainous area. While most of the city consists of modern buildings, its principal monument is the 16th-century church and former monastery of San José. Formerly, its name was Taximaroa, and it was the part of the Purépecha Empire closest to the Aztec Empire. This prompted two unsuccessful Aztec invasions as well as the first Spanish incursion into Purépecha lands in 1522. For both the city and rural communities around it, forestry and furniture making are important parts of the economy, but deforestation is forcing the area to look into alternatives such as tourism to take advantage of its natural resources and cultural sites.
The historic center of Mexico City, also known as the Centro or Centro Histórico, is the central neighborhood in Mexico City, Mexico, focused on the Zócalo and extending in all directions for a number of blocks, with its farthest extent being west to the Alameda Central. The Zocalo is the largest plaza in Latin America. It can hold up to nearly 100,000 people.
Tlaltecatzin, according to some sources, was a son of the Aztec tlatoani Moctezuma II. In the Noche Triste, the Spanish took him out of Tenochtitlan as a prisoner with other Aztec noblemen, also prisoners, including his brother Chimalpopoca. The Aztecs attacked the Spanish party, and both Tlaltecatzin and Chimalpopoca were killed.
The following is an alphabetical index topics related to Mexico.
The Museum of Mexico City is located at Pino Suarez 30, a few blocks south of the Zocalo, on what was the Iztapalapa Causeway, near where Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma II met for the first time. This building used to be the palace of the Counts of Santiago de Calimaya, who were the descendants of one of the conquistadors with Cortés. The house was extensively remodeled during the colony to much the appearance that it has today and remained in the family until 1960, when the Mexico City government acquired it from them in order to found the Museum that is found there today. The museum contains a number of elements of the old palace as well as 26 rooms dedicated to the history and development of Mexico City from Aztec times to the present. It also contains a library and the studios of painter Joaquín Clausell, who lived here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Antonio de León y Gama (1735–1802) was a Mexican astronomer, anthropologist and writer. When in 1790 the Aztec calendar stone was discovered buried under the main square of Mexico City, he published an essay about it, Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras que con ocasión del nuevo empedrado que se está formando en la plaza principal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de 1790 explaining the functioning of Aztec calendars.
Nahuatl, Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations in the United States.
The Spanish conquest of Chiapas was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Mesoamerican polities in the territory that is now incorporated into the modern Mexican state of Chiapas. The region is physically diverse, featuring a number of highland areas, including the Sierra Madre de Chiapas and the Montañas Centrales, a southern littoral plain known as Soconusco and a central depression formed by the drainage of the Grijalva River.
The statue of Vicente Guerrero, a hero of independence and president of Mexico until he was driven from the presidency by conservatives, was installed in Mexico City's Plaza de San Fernando, in 1870. The installation follows the defeat of Mexican conservatives and reestablishment of the republic under liberal control. The bronze sculpture was created from the model in plaster by Mexican sculptor, Miguel Noreña (1839-1894). Noreña is best known for his sculpture topping the Monument to Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor.
