50 Fun Facts About Mexican History

Which Mexican general lost a leg to French cannon fire in 1838, then had it buried with full military honours?

Santa Anna later saw that buried leg dug up by a mob and dragged through the streets. A cork replacement was captured by US troops in 1847 and kept as a war trophy in Illinois.

Which country secretly offered Mexico the return of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico in a telegram decoded by Britain?

Germany made the offer in the Zimmermann Telegram, hoping a war on the border would keep American troops at home. Its exposure helped bring the United States into World War I.

Which crop did the Aztecs of Mexico froth into a bitter drink and count out as small change in markets?

Cacao beans worked as money: Spanish records from 1545 priced a small rabbit at thirty of them and a turkey hen at a hundred.

Which 1838 conflict saw France blockade Mexico's Gulf ports over unpaid claims for damage to its citizens' property?

The Pastry War took its name from a French pastry chef who said Mexican officers had looted his shop near Mexico City. He demanded 60,000 pesos for a shop valued at under 1,000.

In legend, which sign from the god Huitzilopochtli showed the Mexica where to found their capital?

An eagle on a cactus is the sign in the legend, and the scene sits at the centre of Mexico's flag. Several early Aztec depictions show the bird without the snake in its beak.

Which holiday marks Mexico's 1862 victory over a French army at Puebla rather than Mexican independence?

Cinco de Mayo recalls General Ignacio Zaragoza's troops beating the French on May 5, 1862. Inside Mexico the day stays mostly ceremonial, marked with military parades and battle re-enactments.

Which disease, brought to Mexico by a Spanish expedition in 1520, killed much of the Aztec leadership?

Smallpox tore through the Aztec capital months before the final siege. The Spanish, long exposed to the disease at home, were affected relatively little.

Which future US state, once a Mexican province governed from Monterey, passed to the United States in 1848?

California was signed over on February 2, 1848, just nine days after gold was found at Sutter's Mill. The rush that followed drew about 300,000 people.

Which Aztec island capital, founded around 1325, lies buried beneath the historic centre of modern Mexico City?

Tenochtitlan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas at its peak, joined to the lakeshore by three causeways. Spanish builders raised their own capital over its ruins.

Which revolutionary general raided Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916 and escaped the US Army sent to catch him?

Pancho Villa may have meant the raid to goad the United States into invading Mexico. General John Pershing's expedition hunted him for nearly eleven months and went home empty-handed.

Which early civilisation of Mexico's Gulf Coast carved colossal basalt heads, some weighing more than 20 tons?

Olmec sculptors hauled the basalt from the Tuxtlas mountains, and seventeen heads are confirmed. In 1942 the archaeologist Alfonso Caso called theirs the mother culture of Mesoamerica.

Which ancient city near Mexico City holds the Pyramid of the Sun and the Avenue of the Dead?

Teotihuacan may have held 100,000 people at its height, centuries before the Aztecs arrived. They took its pyramids for tombs, which is how the avenue got its name.

Which Maya city in Yucatán is dominated by El Castillo, a pyramid voted one of the New Seven Wonders in 2007?

Chichen Itza's pyramid is a temple to Kukulcán, the Maya feathered serpent, whose carved heads sit at the foot of one staircase.

Which feathered serpent god of the Aztecs was linked to the wind, the planet Venus and learning?

Quetzalcoatl was also credited with inventing books and the calendar and with giving maize to humankind.

Which language of the Aztec Empire is the source of the English words avocado, coyote and tomato?

Nahuatl words reached English through Spanish, and chili and chocolate arrived the same way. The speech of the Aztec capital became a prestige language across Mesoamerica.

What name is given to the garden islands the Aztecs built on shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico?

Chinampas are often called floating gardens, yet they never floated: farmers staked out rectangles of shallow lake bed and fenced them with woven reeds.

From which material did the ancient peoples of Mexico make solid balls for their ritual ballgame 3,500 years ago?

Rubber balls dated to about 1600 BC, the earliest known in the world, were recovered from a sacrificial bog at El Manatí.

Which Aztec emperor was on the throne when Hernán Cortés marched into the capital in November 1519?

Moctezuma II was struck by three stones while addressing his own people, in one Spanish soldier's eyewitness telling, and refused to have the wounds dressed.

Which Nahua woman, one of 20 enslaved women given to the Spaniards in 1519, became Hernán Cortés's interpreter?

La Malinche spoke both Maya and the Aztec tongue, so Cortés could negotiate through her all the way inland. Their son Martín was among the first mestizos of New Spain.

Which last Aztec emperor had his feet burned by Spaniards seeking hidden gold and was later hanged by Cortés?

Cuauhtémoc took the throne at about 25, as smallpox swept the capital. Cortés later took him along on an expedition to Honduras and executed him on the way for an alleged plot.

Which people, never conquered by the Aztecs, supplied Hernán Cortés with thousands of warriors in 1521?

Tlaxcalans had endured generations of so-called flower wars and an Aztec trade embargo, and seized the chance to strike back. Spain rewarded their city with privileged status.

By what name is the Spaniards' bloody retreat from the Aztec capital on June 30, 1520, remembered?

La Noche Triste, or Night of Sorrows, saw many Spaniards die weighed down by the gold they carried. Mexico City has since renamed the square that marks it for the Victorious Night.

Which Gulf Coast port did Hernán Cortés found in 1519 before scuttling his ships to rule out retreat?

Veracruz takes its name from the True Cross: Cortés came ashore on Good Friday and dedicated his new town to it.

Which sacred image, said to have appeared on a peasant's cloak, became the banner of Mexico's 1810 rebels?

The Virgin of Guadalupe is enshrined on that cloak in a basilica in Mexico City. The story of her appearances is told in the Nican Mopohua, an account printed in a 17th-century book.

Which metal, found at Zacatecas in the 1540s, became colonial Mexico's most important export?

Silver from those northern mines was coined in Mexico into Spanish dollars, the pieces of eight that stayed legal tender in the United States until 1857.

Which Asian port was linked to Acapulco from 1565 to 1815 by Spanish galleons carrying Chinese silk and porcelain?

Manila galleons made only one or two round trips a year. The route back to Asia ran closer to the equator, by way of the Marianas.

Which machine did the Italian Juan Pablos set up in Mexico City in 1539, the first of its kind in the Americas?

A printing press let Pablos issue the first known book published in the Americas that same year, a Christian doctrine in both Spanish and the local Mexican language.

Which Aztec temple was rediscovered in 1978 when electricity workers in Mexico City struck a carved disc?

Templo Mayor came to light after the workers hit a stone relief of the goddess Coyolxauhqui, sister of Huitzilopochtli. Archaeologists then spent four years excavating the site.

Which Zapotec capital in Oaxaca, among Mesoamerica's earliest cities, sits atop an artificially levelled ridge?

Monte Albán was the leading Zapotec centre for nearly a thousand years. It was abandoned so long before written records that its original name is unknown.

Which parish priest rang his church bell in Dolores in 1810 to launch Mexico's war of independence?

Miguel Hidalgo was captured and executed within a year, yet the bell lives on: Mexico's president rings it from the National Palace balcony on the eve of every Independence Day.

On which date does Mexico celebrate its Independence Day, the anniversary of the 1810 Cry of Dolores?

September 16 marks the start of the struggle, not its end: Spanish rule lasted another eleven years, until an independence army marched into Mexico City in 1821.

Which priest led Mexico's independence struggle after 1811 and set out his aims in Sentiments of the Nation?

José María Morelos gathered a congress at Chilpancingo that declared independence in 1813. Captured two years later, he was tried by the Inquisition, defrocked and executed.

Which royalist officer switched sides under the Plan of Iguala and was crowned Mexico's first emperor in 1822?

Agustín de Iturbide reigned for less than a year before his own troops defected and he abdicated. He came back from exile in 1824 and was arrested and executed.

Which independence war hero became Mexico's second president and abolished slavery in most of the country in 1829?

Vicente Guerrero held office for less than a year and was shot by firing squad in 1831, despite pleas for his life. A Mexican state is named in his honour.

Which former mission near San Antonio fell to Mexican troops in March 1836 after a 13-day siege?

The Alamo became a rallying cry: six weeks later Texian soldiers shouted its name as they routed the Mexican army at San Jacinto, in a battle that was over in 18 minutes.

Which 1853 deal sold the United States a strip of Mexican land south of the Gila River for a railroad route?

The Gadsden Purchase brought Mexico's cash-strapped government 10 million dollars for land that is now southern Arizona and New Mexico.

By what name does Mexico honour the six cadets killed defending Chapultepec Castle against US troops in 1847?

Los Niños Héroes include Juan Escutia, who in legend leapt from the castle wrapped in the Mexican flag so that it would not be captured. The date is a civic holiday.

Immigrants of which nationality formed the core of the battalion that left the US Army to fight for Mexico in 1846?

Irish Catholics led by John Riley made up most of Saint Patrick's Battalion. The US Army executed 50 of its members, 30 of them hanged together on the day Chapultepec fell.

Which Zapotec lawyer from Oaxaca, who spoke no Spanish as a boy, became Mexico's first Indigenous president?

Benito Juárez arrived in Oaxaca City at 12 to work as a domestic servant, unable to read. He went on to lead Mexico from 1858 until his death in 1872.

Which Austrian archduke, made Emperor of Mexico with French backing in 1864, was shot by firing squad in 1867?

Maximilian I was the younger brother of Austria's emperor Franz Joseph. He was tried by the restored republic and executed alongside two of his generals.

Which general dominated Mexico from 1876 to 1911 in an era named after him, then died in exile in Paris?

Porfirio Díaz had fought the French at Puebla in 1862. His claim to victory in a rigged 1910 election set off the revolution that drove him out.

Which son of a wealthy Coahuila family escaped jail in 1910 and called for revolution in the Plan of San Luis Potosí?

Francisco Madero became president in 1911, but was deposed in a coup and murdered in February 1913, during the upheaval known as the Ten Tragic Days.

Which revolutionary leader issued the Plan of Ayala in 1911, calling for land to be redistributed to the peasants?

Emiliano Zapata kept fighting for that plan until April 1919, when he was killed in an ambush. His followers took office in Morelos the following year and enacted many of its land reforms.

What were the women called who followed the armies of the Mexican Revolution as cooks, nurses and fighters?

Soldaderas ranged from camp followers to combatants and commanding officers. Armies on both sides relied on them to find and cook food and to nurse the wounded.

Which 1920s uprising saw Catholic rebels fight President Calles's laws restricting the Church in Mexico?

The Cristero War got its name from the rebels' battle cry invoking Christ the King. It raged across central and western Mexico for nearly three years.

Which industry did President Lázaro Cárdenas seize from foreign companies in 1938?

Oil fields and refineries passed to a new state company, Pemex, within three months. The United States, Britain and the Netherlands answered with a boycott of Mexican products.

Which party held power in Mexico without a break from 1929 until it lost the presidential election of 2000?

PRI rule ran for 71 years, a system the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa called the perfect dictatorship.

Ten days before which 1968 event in Mexico City did troops open fire on student protesters at Tlatelolco?

The Summer Olympics opened on schedule, the first Games staged in Latin America. Around 10,000 students had gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas that day.

Which trade agreement took effect on January 1, 1994, the day EZLN rebels seized towns across Chiapas in protest?

NAFTA linked Mexico's economy with those of the United States and Canada. The rebels, drawn from Indigenous communities, declared war on the Mexican state that same day.

In which country did Mexico's 201st Fighter Squadron fly combat missions beside US forces in 1945?

The Philippines saw the squadron fly P-47 Thunderbolts in ground-support missions during the liberation of Luzon, with both Mexican and US insignia on the aircraft.