1300-1500 Tenochtitlan , Aztec Mexico City
The city was built on an island in what was then Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. The city was the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire in the 15th century until it was captured by the Spanish in 1521.
Lake Texcoco was the largest of five interconnected lakes. Since it formed in an endorheic basin, Lake Texcoco was brackish. During the reign of Moctezuma I, the “levee of Nezahualcoyotl” was constructed, reputedly designed by Nezahualcoyotl. Estimated to be 12 to 16 km (7.5 to 9.9 mi) in length, the levee was completed circa 1453. The levee kept fresh spring-fed water in the waters around Tenochtitlan and kept the brackish waters beyond the dike, to the east.
First Smallpox outbreak killed half the population.
When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on 8 November 1519. Although there are not precise numbers, the city’s population has been estimated at between 200,000–400,000 inhabitants… rivalling Paris, Rome, and Constantinople and 5x the size of Henry VIII’s London.
1821 Agustin de Iturbide , First President and Emperor of Mexico, executed in 1824
- Mexico owes its name to Iturbide, that of Mexico, as opposed to “United Mexican States.” While the latter is considered the official name, the inhabitants of the country refer to it by the name of Mexico.
- Another legacy that Iturbide left to Mexico was its modern flag, still used today. The three colors of red, white, and green originally represented the three guarantees of the Plan of Iguala: Freedom, Religion, and Union. In the place of the Spanish emblem for Mexico, he resurrected the old Tenochtitlan symbol for Mexico City, an eagle perched on a nopal cactus holding a snake in its beak. With it, he hoped to link the upcoming Mexican Empire with the old Aztec one.