What if the Aztecs Had Captured and Killed the Spanish Conquistadors?

The Woefully Misunderstood History of the Aztec Empire

The word Aztec brings to mind a grand empire, grand pyramids, bloody wars. Who were they, and why do we still call them Aztecs?

What if the Aztecs Had Captured and Killed the Spanish Conquistadors?

The place: Tenochtitlan, a metropolis built in the middle of a lake, with floating islands supported by piles. The date: November 1519. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men must have been astonished. Tenochtitlan had more inhabitants than London or Paris and, in many ways, was better organized. Standing before Cortés, a 34-year-old university dropout, was the most powerful emperor in the Americas, Moctezuma II. “Gazing on such wonderfu…