8 US Sates are on land that used to belong to Mexico. Welcome to History Lists. Let's talk about how things used to be south of Texas. The Mayans, these guys thrived in the Yucatan Peninsula for over 1000 years The Mayans are known for their advanced knowledge in astronomy and mathematics They understood the concept of zero centuries before Europeans did and developed the only writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. Their cities were complex. Housing schools libraries, hospitals, and sport arenas. What makes this all even more impressive is that the Mayans didn't have lakes, springs or freshwater people needed They had to develop an intricate series of channels and chill dunes in order to redirect and store enough rain to keep things going. Weirdly enough though by the time the Spanish showed up in "new" world they were puzzled to find out that many of these great cities had already been abandoned even today we are still not sure what happened but it seems likely that disease coupled with drought and the abuse of their environment led to their civilizations collapse. Number 2 let's talk about some Aztecs. These people call themselves the Mexica which is where the country of Mexico would eventually get it's name. They built their society on top of chinampas which are manmade islands held together by roots, stakes, lake sediments, and probably feces like the Mayans they enjoyed developing chocolate, sacrificing humans to their gods and playing yulama which was a sport that often ended in injury or death and was possibly even used to resolve between states rather than going to war. They ruled over five million people in their empire that stretched from coast to coast and they demanded a lot of tribute. They were not super beloved by all their subjects and when Cortez rolled in he was able to turn much of their empire against them. The Aztecs were hit with a civilization triple-whammy. Famine, smallpox, and being betrayed from the inside. I'm just saying that like sacrificing people a lot might have backfired on them. and this paved the way for Spanish colonization. Tenochtitlan was raised to the ground and built over it was Nueva España as new Captial. Mexico City. Since the Tenochtitlan were instrumental in defeating the Aztecs. They Spanish allowed them to keep their indigenous names and some of their traditional forms of government. Other tribes did not fare so well. Eventually a catholic priest named Migual Hidalgo y Costilla called the people of Nueva España to arms for their country's independence and he was captured and killed but hey even that didn't stop Mexico from becoming it's own constitutional monarchy in 1821. Time for some revolution. The country began to do pretty well economically a stable yet super corrupt dictatorship by Porfirio Diaz yet the Native Americans who have been assimilated into Mexican society became increasingly poor and angry. As they were forced to grow cash crops that they couldn't actually eat. The rising middle class were also kind of pissed that their government had become pay-to-play and both groups joined together to take the regime down. They established a liberal democracy after overthrowing their dictator and a wealthy idealist named Francisco Madero was elected president and I'm not going to sugarcoat it he was assassinated pretty quickly before he could do anything [singing tone] Mexican-American War In the 1840's US president Polk had his eye set on some Mexican territory. When they turned his offer down to buy them he moved troops into the disputed zone between the Rio Grande and Nueces River. Mexico thought that was less than chill, given our recent annexation of Texas. They responded by sending in a calvary and killing about 12 US soldiers. That obviously meant war and the United States proceeded to defeat Mexico along pretty much the same route that Cortez had taken when fighting the Aztecs and Mexico lost. They were forced to sell all of their land north of the Rio Grande 15 million dollars.