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The Aztecs sacrifice 20,000 people to inaugurate their new temple in Tenochtitlan,the capital of the Aztecs. The sacrifices were justified by a belief that said that the rituals were necessary to keep the sun on its course.
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Christopher Columbus lands in the islands of Hispaniola "discovering" America. He also started what is now known as the Colombian Exchange.
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Bartolome` de las Casas, a member of the Ovaldo expedition, becomes the first priest to be ordained in the New World.
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Montezuma was the current leader of the Aztec empire and greeted Hernan Cortes with gifts instead of armies because they believed he was the Quetzelcoatl or the God of Wisdom. Within 2 years Cortes had captured the Aztec empire.
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La Noche Triste was an important night, during Spanish conquest of Mexico, where Hernán Cortés' was nearly halted in the Mexico capital at Tenochtitlan, and Cortés barely escaped.
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Francisco Pizarro conquered Peru in 1532 after his third expedition there. The first two times were failed and one of the times he was not supported by the new king of Panama.
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Toussaint L'Ouverture delivers his famous Declaration of Camp Turel. He was a leader of enslaved blacks for independence over French in Haiti.
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Simón Bolívar was political leader in Venezula who helped lead his people, with the help of José de San Martín, to independence from Spain.
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Tikal was one of the largest sites of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. In the 1850s locals guided Guatemalan expeditions through the ruins.
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Machu Picchu was originaly built for the incan emperior Pachacuti. However, Hiram Bingham theoried that it was the original birthplace of the Incan "Virgins of the Suns".
