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The Maya were a Mesoamerican people who lived in what is today Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. They istory begins around 2000 BC.
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The Maya begin building huge complex structures known as triadic structures. These structures were usually used as temples.
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El Mirador was a large city state that at its height, had a population of around 250,000 people making it the largest city n the world at this time. Many of the temples were set up in specific ways to align with the sun and stars.
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Around 150 AD many cites like El Mirador were completely abandoned, archeologists don't know why. Over the next hundred years, power shifted between the different cities of the Maya, mostly through warfare and trade.
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Large parts of the Maya civilization collapsed again, cities which had existed for over 2,000 years were abandoned and people moved towards the coast. The best theories are warfare, drought, disease, and political instability.
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The golden rod sank completely into the ground and Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo founded the incan empire, and made cuzco the capital.
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Sinchi Roca the sapa inca ruled the empire in this time period to 1260
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The Aztecs saw and eagle devouring a snake upon a cactus and saw it as a sign of their new home and decided to settle there.
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The Aztecs Founded their city Tenochtitlan and began the rise of the aztec empire.
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Pachacuti took to the throne as the ninth sapa inca, at this time the inas began to expand and Pachacuti built a government in cuzco, and divided the empire into four provinces.
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This was the start of the period of the peak of the empire under Ahuitzotl
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The Aztec held a special religious celebration in which they sacrificed around 84,000 people over a period of four days. this number may have been exaggerated to create fear among neighboring tribes.
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In 1502 the hight of the aztec empire was considered as coming to and end. Moctezuma The second took over as emperor.
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The Spanish first met the Maya in 1511. The Spanish first wiped out the Maya's neighbors, the Aztec Empire, then moved on the Maya cities.
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Hernan cortes and the spaniards landed on the Gulf Coast and allied themselves with a local tribe called Tlaxcala
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The Tlaxcala and the spaniards sieged Tenochtitlan and burned it brick by brick brining the Aztecs down along with it.
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Pizzaro returns the outskirts of the incan empire and led a surprise attack in which the captured and took Atahualpa. He held the sapa inca captive until he received a huge randsome and decided to break his deal and he killed Atahualpa in 1533.
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The Spaniards caught Tupac Amaru, the last Sapa Inca, after 40 years of warfare and executed him. It was after this that the incan empire crumbled.
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After years of living uneasily with the Spanish the Spanish captured the last independent Maya city. Though many isolated maya villages were left untouched and preserved culture.