History of the Aztecs History of the Aztecs The Aztecs were a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. They called themselves Mexicah (pronounced [meˈʃikaʔ]). The capital of the Aztec Empire was Tenochtitlan. During the empire, the city was built on a raised island in Lake Angels. Modern-day Mexico City was constructed on the ruins of Tenochtitlan. The Spanish colonisation of the Americas reached the mainland during the reign of Hueyi Tlatoani Moctezuma II (Montezuma II). In 1521, Hernán Cortés, along with an allied army of other Native Americans, conquered the Aztecs through germ warfare (germ theory not
The empire on which the sun never sets The empire on which the sun never sets The phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets" has been used with variations to describe certain global empires that were so extensive that there was always at least one part of their territory that was in daylight. It was originally coined for the Spanish Empire, mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries. In more recent times, it was used for the British Empire, mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period, the British Empire reached a territorial size larger than that of any other empire in history.