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Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led the conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico from 1519. Taking the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Cortés plundered Mesoamerica as he became the first ruler of the new colony...
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The Conquistador Hernán Cortés
A portrait of the Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés (1485–1547 CE) conqueror of the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century CE. (Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid)
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Hernán Cortés
A 19th century CE engraving of Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés (1485–1547 CE) conqueror of the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century CE. (Book of America, R. Cronau)
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Hernán Cortés by Weiditz
A 16th-century portrait by Christoph Weiditz of the Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés (1485–1547 CE) conqueror of the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century. (Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg)
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Prize amphora showing a chariot race
Chariot-racing was the only Olympic sport in which women could take part, as owners of teams of horses. Kyniska, a princess of Sparta, was the first woman to win the Olympic crown in this sport. British Museum curator Judith Swaddling describes...
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Stela of Hernán Pérez VI from Bronze Age Iberia
This granite stela dates from the Early or Middle Bronze Age. It was discovered in Cáceres, Spain. (Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid)
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Cortés & the Fall of the Aztec Empire
The Aztec empire flourished between c. 1345 and 1521 CE and dominated ancient Mesoamerica. This young and warlike nation was highly successful in spreading its reach and gaining fabulous wealth, but then all too quickly came the strange visitors...
Definition
The Conquest of New Spain
The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492 to c. 1580) is an account written in 1568 of the early Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica, specifically the conquest of the Aztec civilization in Mexico from 1519 to 1521 when Díaz...
Definition
Ancient Olympic Games
The ancient Olympic Games were a sporting event held every four years at the sacred site of Olympia, in the western Peloponnese, in honour of Zeus, the supreme god of the Greek religion. The games, held from 776 BCE to 393 CE, involved participants...
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The Iberian Conquest of the Americas
European explorers began to probe the Western Hemisphere in the early 1500s, and they found to their utter amazement not only a huge landmass but also a world filled with several diverse and populous indigenous cultures. Among their most...