Hernan: Did you mean...?

An 1899 painting by William de Leftwich Dodge (1867–1935) depicting the last stand of the Aztecs during the siege of Tenochtitlan by Hernán Cortés in 1521. (Howard Tilton Library, Tulane University, New Orleans)

Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (also spelt Velásquez, 1465-1524) was a Spanish conquistador who conquered Cuba in 1511, became the island's first governor for the next decade, and sponsored expeditions of conquest directed at the American mainland...

A highly readable narrative of the causes, course, and consequences of the Spanish Conquest, incorporating the perspectives of many Native groups, Black slaves, and the conquistadors, timed with the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec...

The striking turquoise mask now in the British Museum in London is thought to represent Xiuhtecuhtli, the Aztec god of fire, and dates to the final century of the Aztec empire, c. 1400-1521 CE. It is made from hundreds of small pieces of...

A 1728 illustration of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (1465-1524) was a Spanish conquistador who conquered Cuba in 1511, became the island’s governor for the next decade, and sponsored the expedition of Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) which conquered...

In which John Green explores how Spain went from being a middling European power to one of the most powerful empires on Earth, thanks to their plunder of the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries. Learn how Spain managed to destroy the...

Timothy R. Pauketat is an American archaeologist, director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, the Illinois State Archaeologist, and professor of anthropology and medieval studies at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana...

Kukulcan (pron. Koo-kool-kan) is the name of a feathered serpent god in the mythology and religion of Mesoamerica, in particular, the Yucatec Maya. He is also identified as the feathered serpent god Quetzalcóatl by the Toltecs and Aztecs...

The encomienda was a system where Spanish adventurers and settlers were granted the legal right to extract forced labour from indigenous tribal chiefs in the Americas colonies of the Spanish Empire. In return, the Europeans were expected...

Montezuma (aka Moctezuma), or more correctly, Motecuhzoma II Xocoyotzin, meaning 'Angry Like A Lord’, was the last fully independent ruler of the Aztec empire before the civilization's collapse after the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th...