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900 AD - Large parts of the Maya civilization collapsed. Cities which had existed for over 2,000 years were abandoned and people moved towards the coast.
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500 BC - building enormous stone complexes known as triadic structures. These triadic structures were made up of several tall pyramids surrounded by lower buildings, all built on large stone platforms.
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300 BC - 250,000 people lived in El Mirador, making it one of the largest cities in the world at the time.
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150 AD - Maya cities, including El Mirador, were abandoned completely, though archeologists don't know why. Over the next hundred years, power shifted between the different cities of the Maya, mostly through warfare and trade.
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1200 - The Inca Empire made Cuzco the capital.
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1250 - the Aztecs settled near Lake Texcoco.
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1325 - founded Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City).
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1438 - Pachacuti (whose name literally meant "World-Shaker") ascended to the throne. He was the ninth Sapa Inca.
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1487 - Aztecs were said to have offered the lives of 84,400 people (mainly criminals and POWs) over a period of four days.
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1519 - Herman (or Hernan) Cortes and his fellow Spaniards landed on the Gulf Coast. They allied themselves with a local tribe called Tlaxcala.
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1521 - The Spanish first wiped out the Maya's neighbors, the Aztec Empire, then moved on to the Maya cities.
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1526 - Spaniard by the name of Francisco Pizarro organized an expedition. He wanted to find the legendary El Dorado. Rumor had it that the place was full of gold. Pizarro set sail from Panama in August 1526.
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1531 - Herman and his fellow Spaniards brought the mighty Aztec Empire to its knees.
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November 16, 1532 - Pizarro and his followers (less than 200 men) staged a surprise attack. They caught Atahualpa and held him captive. They demanded a large amount of ransom for his release.
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1536 - To appease the Incas, the Spaniards put up another puppet ruler, Manco Inca. He rebelled in 1536.
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1697 - The Spanish had conquered the northern half of the Maya lands within six years.The remaining Maya, who lived inland, coexisted with the Spanish uneasily for a hundred years before the Spanish captured the last independent Maya city
