He attacked his older brothers and sister, defending his mother by beheading his sister and casting her body from the mountain top. If Huitzilopochtli did not have enough strength to battle his siblings, they would destroy their mother and thus the world.

It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the swooping arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec in central Mexico. But it was the Aztec, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt falling awestruck by what they saw, who gave its current name: Teotihuacan.

The four Tezcatlipocas descended the first people who were giants. They created the other gods, the most important of whom were the water gods: Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility and Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of lakes, rivers and oceans, also the goddess of beauty.

Huitzilopochtli is considered a creator god, but not for a simple or passive creation, like you might find in other religions. This god fought with his sister, then decapitated and dismembered her. He threw her torso down to the base of the mountain and threw her head into the sky, which became the moon.

What did the Aztecs fear would happen every 52 years? What could be done to avoid that? They would extinguish religious fires and destroy furniture and belongings and go into mourning.

New Fire Ceremony, also called The Binding Up of the Years, in Aztec religion, ritual celebrated every 52 years when the 260-day ritual and 365-day civil calendars returned to the same positions relative to each other. In preparation, all sacred and domestic fires were allowed to burn out.

Ancient Aztec religion was a complex interaction of gods, dates, directions and colours. It seems that most of the preoccupation in the religion had to do with fear of the nature, and a fear of the end of the world.

Without a doubt, the one thing all Mexica (Aztec) people were afraid of was the end of their world – what they called the Fifth Sun. They believed that our world has ‘come and gone’ (been created and then destroyed) four times in the past and that we’re now living (so were they) in the fifth and last Sun.

The Aztecs were severely weakened by diseases that the Spanish brought such as smallpox, influenza, and malaria. Over time, around 80 percent of the people living in the Valley of Mexico died from these diseases. Cortés founded Mexico City on the ruins of Tenochtitlan.

The Aztecs were a sophisticated and powerful people who ruled over nearly 500 smaller states. For the rededication of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, 84,400 prisoners were sacrificed over four days, according to an Aztec account. The Aztecs were cannibals.

Both the Aztec and the Inca empires were conquered by Spanish conquistadors; the Aztec Empire was conquered by Cortés, and the Inca Empire was defeated by Pizarro. The empire was also weakened by a civil war between two ruling brothers. …

Invaders led by the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés overthrew the Aztec Empire by force and captured Tenochtitlan in 1521, bringing an end to Mesoamerica’s last great native civilization.

War was the key factor in the Aztecs’ rise to power. The Aztecs built alliances, or partnerships, to build their empire. The Aztecs made the people they conquered pay tribute, or give them cotton, gold, or food. The Aztecs controlled a huge trade network.

Townsend said spects of Aztec culture are still alive today. “There are literally more than a million speakers of the Aztec language in Mexico today,” she said. “In fact, some of them now live in the United States.

The Aztecs are credited with a number of inventions, but in reality, most of their “inventions” were already well-known in Central America. It’s more accurate to say the Aztecs popularized inventions such as popcorn and chewing gum by introducing them to the Spanish conquerors.

Aztec Inventions: Antispasmodic medication The Passion flower was used for this purpose, a flower which still grows in Mexico today. The passion flower is still used today as an herbal remedy, believed to help with insomnia, epilepsy, and high blood pressure.