Conquering the New World - The Spanish Empire (13/21)

Conquering the New World - The Spanish Empire (13/21)

Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world and home to more than 23 million people, is the starting point for Dieter Moor's film about the exploits of the Spanish Conquistadors in what was then termed the New World. Mexico City was originally called Tenochtitlán and was the Aztec capital. From here, the Aztecs ruled their empire until in 1519 the Spanish Conquistador, Hernan Cortéz landed on the Yucatan peninsula with eleven ships and 500 soldiers. Just two years later, Tenochtitlán had been razed to the ground. On the ruins of Monteczuma's palace and temple, a cathedral and the national palace were built. At Monte Alban, a place of worship close to Oaxaca, Cortés discovered that the Zapotec people living there had access to the material he had come here to find: gold. The film also stops off at Santo Domingo, named after Easter Sunday, the day Christopher Columbus arrived here. Columbus and his people arrived from the north, modern-day Haiti. They had been driven out by a combination of local forces, the humid climate and the swampy land. Columbus christened the island Hispaniola, little Spain. It was he who made Santo Domingo the capital city of what is now the Dominican Republic. Today, the Panama Canal is one of the most important trading routes in the world. Thanks to it, ships no longer have to take the long route and hazardous route around South America and Cape Horn. In September 1513, a wild group of gold-hungry Spaniards were roaming through the hot and humid jungle in this region. Among them, Francisco Pizarro. They were looking for gold, but instead discovered first an ocean that no European had ever seen before, the Pacific Ocean. The way was free to conquer South America from the West. For more than 200 years, the Spaniards transported their spoils along the Camino Real.