S5E201 - The Siege of Tenochtitlan: The 93-Day War

In 1521, Hernán Cortés and a vast Indigenous army laid siege to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. For 93 days, the city endured starvation, smallpox, and relentless assault. This episode digs into the final act of the conquest: the cutting of the causeways, the battle for Tlatelolco, the fall of Cuauhtémoc, and the brutal street-by-street fighting that left Tenochtitlan in ruins. We explore how the siege was won not just by steel and gunpowder, but by the sheer numbers of Tlaxcalan and other Indigenous allies, and how the city's own geography—its canals, its chinampas, its causeways—became its death t...