Smallpox ravages Tenochtitlan
1520 · Event
Brought ashore with the Narváez expedition, smallpox burns through a population with no immunity while the Spaniards regroup in Tlaxcala — killing perhaps forty per cent of the Valley of Mexico, the new emperor Cuitláhuac among them. The city that withstands the siege is already half-broken.
On these timelines: Conquest of the Aztec Empire, Pre-Columbian Americas, Latin America, Master, Medicine & Public Health
More from Conquest of the Aztec Empire
- Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519)
- Cortés and Moctezuma meet on the causeway (1519)
- Aztec Empire ends (1521)
- La Noche Triste (1520)
- Cortés lands at Veracruz (1519)
- Cortés scuttles his fleet (1519)
- Tlaxcala allies with Cortés (1519)
- Battle of Otumba (1520)
Around 1520
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- Columbus reaches the Americas (1492)
- English Reformation (1533)
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