The History of Mexico | History Lists | History

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.