1519

Events in 1519 3

• 1452 – 1519 Leonardo da Vinci Painter, sculptor, engineer, scientist — the ultimate Renaissance man Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, near Florence, and died on May 2, 1519 in Clos Lucé, France. The most diversely talented person who ever lived, he excelled as painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, botanist and writer.
• 1519 – 1521 Hernán Cortés arrives -- the world changes Hernán Cortés lands on the coast of Mexico in February 1519 with 508 soldiers, 16 horses, 14 cannon and 13 muskets -- a force that seems laughably small against an empire of millions. His achievement is not primarily military but diplomatic: he exploits the deep resentments of subject peoples (particularly the Tlaxcalans), the political divisions within the Triple Alliance, and possibly the psychological disruption caused by the arrival of bearded strangers in the Year One Reed (the predicted return year of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl). Within two years he transforms a diplomatic visit into a conquest. The allies without whom Cortés would certainly have failed -- the Tlaxcalans, Texcocans and dozens of other subject peoples -- are the real story of the Spanish conquest, as much as any European military advantage.
• 1519 – 1521 Tlaxcala -- the empire's greatest enemy becomes its destroyer Tlaxcala, an independent confederation of four city-states in the mountains east of the Valley of Mexico, is the Aztec empire's most formidable unconquered enemy -- fighting the Flower Wars with the Triple Alliance for decades without being conquered. When Cortés arrives in 1519, the Tlaxcalans initially fight him fiercely (and nearly destroy his force), then -- recognising an opportunity -- ally with him against their Aztec overlords. The Tlaxcalan alliance is the single most important factor in the Spanish conquest: Cortés's Tlaxcalan allies provide the mass of infantry for the siege of Tenochtitlan, the carriers for the brigantine boats, the intelligence about Aztec defences, and the motivated warriors who constitute perhaps 80% of the actual fighting force. Without Tlaxcala there is no conquest. This history is genuinely complex: Tlaxcala considers itself a liberator of subject peoples, not a collaborator with foreign invaders -- a perspective that Mexican national historiography has been slow to acknowledge.