S4E176 - How Smallpox Toppled the Aztec Empire

In 1520, as Hernán Cortés and his allies fought to take Tenochtitlan, a far deadlier enemy arrived without a single sword drawn: smallpox. This episode explores how the cocoliztli—the 'great sickness'—swept through Mesoamerica, killing an estimated one-third of the population in just years. We trace the outbreak from the arrival of a enslaved African from the Narváez expedition to the death of the Aztec emperor Cuitláhuac. Drawing on the Florentine Codex and other indigenous accounts, we discuss the horrific symptoms, the psychological devastation, and how disease became an unintentional but decisive ally for the Spanish...