5281–5293 AM · 1521 CE — 1533 CE · world history
The Fall of the Aztec and Inca Empires
Small Spanish forces destroy the two greatest American empires within a decade.
Cortés takes Tenochtitlan, a lake city larger than the Madrid of its day, with a few hundred soldiers. Twelve years later Pizarro captures Atahualpa and topples the Inca empire. Alliances with subject peoples mattered more than steel and horses — and smallpox mattered most, killing up to ninety per cent of the population.