Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
In 1519 Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico with a few hundred men and no permission to be there. Within about two years the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, one of the largest cities in the world, was in ruins and its empire was gone. How that happened is still argued over, and the story is stranger than the legend. These multiple choice questions cover the whole conquest of Mexico: the expedition and the men who led it, Moctezuma II and the emperors who came after him, the native peoples who fought on both sides, the retreat and the final siege, and what the conquerors built afterwards. A few questions deal with the chroniclers and historians who shaped how the war is remembered. The quiz suits students revising a world history unit, teachers who want a ready set of questions, and anyone curious about the fall of the Aztecs. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can learn the story as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Legend says Cortés burned his ships in 1519, but what did he really do to stop his men sailing home?
Scuttled them
Scuttled them after men loyal to the governor plotted to seize a ship and flee; the burning story traces to a remark by a chronicler in 1546.
Q 02Which enslaved woman became the interpreter and adviser of Hernán Cortés on the march to Tenochtitlan?
La Malinche
La Malinche was one of 20 enslaved women given to the Spaniards in 1519, and she later bore Cortés a son, Martín.
Q 03Which disease, brought to Mexico in 1520 by a rival Spanish expedition, ravaged Tenochtitlan before the final siege?
Smallpox
Smallpox had been endemic in Europe for centuries, so the Spaniards were barely touched while the city's defenders and many of its leaders died.
Q 04A legend spread after the conquest claims Moctezuma II mistook Hernán Cortés for which returning Aztec god?
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl's supposed return appears in no document free of Spanish influence, and historians trace the tale to friars writing years after the war.
Q 05Which drink, then unknown in Europe, did Hernán Cortés see served at the court of Moctezuma II?
Chocolate
Chocolate was one of the two most important drinks to the Aztecs, yet there is no evidence that Cortés himself carried it home across the Atlantic.
Q 06Which people, old enemies of the Aztecs, sent thousands of warriors to fight beside Cortés against Tenochtitlan?
Tlaxcalans
Tlaxcalans fought the Spaniards before joining them; their state was never conquered by the Aztec Empire, which kept it in a state of perpetual war.
Q 07What Spanish name is given to the 1520 rout in which Cortés and his army fled Tenochtitlan with heavy losses?
La Noche Triste
La Noche Triste means the Night of Sorrows; in 2021 the Mexico City tree where Cortés is said to have wept was renamed the Tree of the Victorious Night.
Q 08From which Caribbean island colony did Hernán Cortés sail for Mexico in 1519, ignoring its governor's order to stay?
Cuba
Cuba had been his home for years: Cortés was twice appointed a magistrate on the island before he ignored the recall and sailed in open mutiny.
Q 09Which conquistador, a distant cousin of Hernán Cortés, went on to overthrow the Inca Empire in Peru?
Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro was a second cousin once removed of Cortés, and reports of the riches won in Mexico helped prompt his own expeditions south.
Q 10Which animals brought by Cortés, likened to deer in Aztec accounts, had died out in the Americas millennia earlier?
Horses
Horses evolved in North America but vanished there roughly 10,000 years ago, so a mounted soldier was a sight no Aztec warrior had faced.
Q 11What name did Hernán Cortés give the territory he seized from the Aztecs, later ruled by viceroys for almost 300 years?
New Spain
New Spain had its capital, Mexico City, raised on the site of Tenochtitlan, and the viceroyalty was dissolved only in 1821.
Q 12Which last Aztec emperor had the soles of his feet burned by Spaniards searching for hidden treasure in 1521?
Cuauhtémoc
Cuauhtémoc was captured crossing the lake as his city fell, and the torture by fire failed to reveal the riches his captors expected.
Q 13Which Gulf coast town did Cortés found in 1519 so that its council could free him from his governor's authority?
Veracruz
Veracruz began as Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, named for the True Cross because Cortés had landed on Good Friday.
Q 21Which commander, sent in 1520 to arrest Cortés for mutiny, lost an eye and most of his army to him instead?
Pánfilo de Narváez
Pánfilo de Narváez was overrun in a surprise night attack, and Cortés then persuaded the rest of the beaten army to join his own.
Q 22Which governor sponsored the 1519 expedition to Mexico, then tried to recall it over doubts about the loyalty of Cortés?
Diego Velázquez
Diego Velázquez and Cortés had an old quarrel, and when the governor revoked the charter at the last minute, Cortés ignored the order and sailed anyway.
Q 23Which Spaniard, held by the Maya since a 1511 shipwreck, joined Hernán Cortés in 1519 as his first translator?
Q 14To which king did Hernán Cortés address five long letters defending the conquest he had begun in open mutiny?
Charles V
Charles V was also Holy Roman Emperor and busy with wars in Europe; the first letter is lost, and one from the town council Cortés had set up stands in for it.
Q 15Into which language of the Aztecs did the interpreters of Hernán Cortés turn his words, using Maya as a bridge?
Nahuatl
Nahuatl reached Cortés in two steps at first: one interpreter turned his words into Maya, and a second turned the Maya into the Aztec tongue.
Q 16Aztec warriors met Spanish steel with the macuahuitl, a wooden sword edged with blades of which razor-sharp material?
Obsidian
Obsidian can take an edge sharper than a high-quality steel razor, and rows of the blades were set into both sides of the weapon.
Q 17Which raised structures linked island Tenochtitlan to the mainland and funnelled the fleeing Spaniards in 1520?
Causeways
Causeways ran north, south and west from the city with bridged gaps for canoes; the Aztecs had damaged the bridges, so the Spaniards built a portable one.
Q 18What kind of warships did Cortés have built inland and hauled overland to blockade Tenochtitlan during the 1521 siege?
Brigantines
Brigantines, thirteen of them, were built under the master shipbuilder Martín López and gave the besiegers control of the water around the city.
Q 19According to Spanish accounts, how was Moctezuma II fatally wounded in 1520 while appealing to his own people?
Struck by stones
Struck by stones from his own subjects is the Spanish version; indigenous accounts instead say Cortés's men stabbed him, or that he was found strangled.
Q 20Which lieutenant of Cortés ordered the 1520 massacre of Aztec nobles at a festival while his commander was away?
Pedro de Alvarado
Pedro de Alvarado was called Tonatiuh, the Sun, by the Aztecs for his blond hair, and his attack turned an uneasy occupation into open revolt.
Gerónimo de Aguilar
Gerónimo de Aguilar left behind a fellow castaway, Gonzalo Guerrero, who had married a Maya woman and risen to war chief among his captors.
Q 24Which soldier of Cortés wrote a famous eyewitness memoir of the conquest decades later, as an old man in Guatemala?
Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Bernal Díaz del Castillo wrote to rebut a biography by the chaplain of Cortés, which he felt glorified the commander at the expense of the other soldiers.
Q 25In which sacred city, the second largest in central Mexico, did the forces of Cortés massacre thousands in October 1519?
Cholula
Cholula trusted its gods more than its small army; Cortés called the killing a strike against an ambush, while Indigenous accounts say the dead were unarmed.
Q 26At which battle in July 1520 did the battered survivors of Cortés's retreat break a far larger Aztec army?
Otumba
Otumba turned when Cortés picked out the Aztec commander by his elaborate armour and banner and led a charge straight at him.
Q 27Which brother of Moctezuma II succeeded him as Aztec emperor in 1520 but ruled for only 80 days?
Cuitláhuac
Cuitláhuac commanded the Aztec forces on the night the Spaniards were driven from the city, and he probably died in the epidemic that followed.
Q 28By what name did the people of Tenochtitlan call themselves, long before the label Aztec became common after 1810?
Mexica
Mexica were the Valley of Mexico people who ruled the Triple Alliance, and it is only since 1810 that the broader term Aztec has often been used for them.
Q 29In which poor region of western Spain was Hernán Cortés born, in the small town of Medellín, around 1485?
Extremadura
Extremadura was a poor and desolate province of Castile, and Cortés, born into the lesser nobility, chose to seek adventure and riches overseas.
Q 30To which Central American land did Cortés lead an expedition in 1524, hanging the captive Aztec emperor on the way?
Honduras
Honduras was where a captain had renounced his authority; Cortés took the emperor along for fear he would lead an insurrection if left behind.