The Fall of the Empire
The Spaniards Conquest
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The Aztec empire fell because of external challenges to their power, outside pressures and threats, and some disease. In 1519, the Spanish landed on Aztec ground and when they arrived, the Aztec greeted them as honored guests because the leader resembled an Aztec prophesy named Quetzalcoatl. It’s also in debate whether the Aztecs thought that the Spanish were gods or godlike. The empire fell because in 1518 Hernán Cortés began his conquest of the Aztec empire. They started to attack the Aztecs during a ritual dance. Over time, the Aztecs then drove them out of their city, the Spaniards sought out help from Aztec rivals and they attacked the city again in 1521. The reason that the Spaniards were successful was because they had better military attics than the Aztecs, and had more developed strategies. Approximately 240,000 people died from the invasion and that is the main reason the Aztec empire ended. A sub reason that the Aztec civilization failed was because after Cortés took over the city, there was an outbreak of smallpox that wiped out a lot of the people in the area, including Cortés’ people.