Hernan: Did you mean...?

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...

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)

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)

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)

This granite stela dates from the Early or Middle Bronze Age. It was discovered in Cáceres, Spain. (Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid)

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...

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...

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...

The Columbian exchange is a term coined by Alfred Crosby Jr. in 1972 that is traditionally defined as the transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World of Europe and Africa and the New World of the Americas. The exchange...

The fall of Tenochtitlan on 13 August 1521 was a decisive moment in the dramatic collapse of the Aztec empire which had dominated Mesoamerica. Led by Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), the Spanish conquistadors enjoyed superior weapons and tactics...