Tenochtitlan Falls

August 13, 1521

After a ninety-three-day siege, Spanish brigantines and Tlaxcalan canoes reduced Tenochtitlan to rubble block by block. Smallpox raced through the defenders. The last Mexica emperor, Cuauhtemoc, surrendered in a canoe. Cortes walked through a city of unburied dead and founded Mexico City on the ruins. The destruction was so complete that the capital was buried beneath colonial Mexico City, its ruins discovered only during modern construction.