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Aztecs

At the height of their power, the Aztecs controlled a region stretching from the Valley of Mexico in central Mexico all the way east to the Gulf of Mexico and south to Guatemala. The term Aztec describes the culture that dominated the Central Valley of Mexico in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries after the Triple Alliance. The people before the Triple Alliance are referred to as the Mexicas.
During the 12th century the Mexicas, a hunter gatherer people, left their homeland of Aztlan in search of a new place to call home. According to historians and anthropologists, Aztlan is suggested to be a place only existent in myths. Even the meaning of Aztlan translates into "place of the origin". By the middle of the 13th century, the Mexicas had migrated to the Valley of Mexico and settled along the western shore of Lake Texcoco, one of five lakes in the area. Upon arriving at the swampy site, their priests proclaimed the area as the place where they would become a great civilization according to omen. They believed Huitzilopochtli, one of their "gods", would direct them to found a city where they would see an eagle devouring a snake perched on a fruit bearing cactus plant. The site turned out to be a strategic location, with abundant food supplies and waterways for transportation. In 1325, they founded the city of Tenochtitlán. During the first 100 years at Lake Texcoco, they paid tribute to the stronger neighboring groups, especially to the Tepanecs of the city-state of Azcapotzalco. In 1428, however, the Mexica king Itzcoatl allied with two other states, Texcoco and Tlacopan, in order to defeat the Tepanecas of Azcapotzalco. This partnership laid the foundation for what would be later known as the Triple Alliance.
Over the next 100 years, the three states waged a series of conquests, eventually establishing an empire that included many different states and ethnic groups extending from central Mexico to both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific shore. Gradually over...