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Cortez and the Conquest of Mexico On November 8, 1519, Spanish adventurer Hernando Cortez and his force of about 300 Spanish soldiers, 18 horses and thousands of Mexico’s native inhabitants who had grown resentful of Aztec rule marched unmolested into Tenochtitlán, the capital city of the Aztec empire. The Aztec ruler Montezuma, believing that Cortez could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl, whose return had been foretold for centuries, greeted the arrival of these strange visitors with courtesy–at least until it became clear that the Spaniards were all too human and bent on conquest. Cortez and his men, dazzled by the Aztec riches and horrified by the human sacrifice central to their religion, began to systematically plunder Tenochtitlán and tear down the bloody temples. Montezuma’s warriors attacked the Spaniards but with the aid of Indian allies, Spanish reinforcements, superior weapons and disease, Cortez defeated an empire of approximately 25 million people by August 13, 1521.

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