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neurologyYou need to know

• The main factors that encouraged Spanish exploration across the Atlantic included the search for new sea-based trade routes to Asia because Ottoman control of land routes made eastern goods expensive, the desire for wealth, religious motivations such as spreading Christianity, competition with other European powers, and advances in navigation technology such as the magnetic compass, the astrolabe, and the lateen-rigged caravel.
• The Atlantic Ocean was the sea crossed during these voyages; Christopher Columbus' first expedition in 1492 opened a regular route between Europe and the Caribbean.
• The 'Old World' refers to Europe, Asia, and Africa, while the 'New World' refers to the continents of North and South America that Europeans encountered in the late 15th century.
• The main routes of Spanish voyages across the Atlantic began with Columbus in 1492 and were followed by expeditions that explored the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific via the Strait of Magellan.
• The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire began in 1519, was led by Hernán Cortés, and culminated in the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521.
• After arriving in 1519, Cortés formed alliances with Indigenous rivals of the Aztecs, entered Tenochtitlan, and detained Moctezuma II; the Spanish retreated from the city in 1520, a smallpox outbreak followed, and Cortés's Spanish-Indigenous coalition besieged and captured Tenochtitlan in 1521.
• The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was highly sophisticated, featuring advanced engineering such as causeways, canals, aqueducts, chinampas, which were raised agricultural plots constructed in shallow lake water, and large marketplaces.
• Aztec society was highly organised, with a strict social hierarchy, an emperor called Moctezuma II at the time of the Spanish arrival, powerful nobles and priests, skilled artisans and warriors, commoners, and enslaved people, while its main language was Nahuatl.
• The causes of conflict between the Aztecs and the Spanish included Spanish demands for gold, religious differences, alliances between the Spanish and rival Indigenous groups, especially the Tlaxcalans, and deep cultural misunderstandings.
• Immediate consequences of the conquest included the destruction of Tenochtitlan, the collapse of the Aztec Empire, and the establishment of Spanish colonial rule over central Mexico, which became New Spain.
• The Spanish deliberately destroyed many Aztec temples, religious images, and codices, coerced Indigenous people to convert to Christianity, and established European forms of colonial governance, but missionaries also used Nahuatl, while Indigenous adaptation and cultural blending enabled substantial continuity in language and culture and influenced later Mexican society.
• The introduction of new diseases such as smallpox, measles, and influenza had a devastating impact on the Indigenous population, causing massive demographic decline.
• The conquest formed part of the wider Columbian Exchange: the transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds after 1492.
• The Florentine Codex, compiled c. 1545–1576 by the Franciscan priest Bernardino de Sahagún with Nahua authors and artists, is a key primary source that combines Spanish and Aztec perspectives on pre-conquest life and the Spanish invasion.
• Tenochtitlan's ruins lie beneath the historic centre of modern-day Mexico City.

• Locate and describe the routes taken by Spanish explorers across the Atlantic and identify key geographical features of the Old and New Worlds on a map, including the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean, and mainland Central America.
• Describe and explain the layout and features of Tenochtitlan, using archaeological and written evidence to illustrate its sophistication.
• Explain the social and political structure of Aztec civilisation, including the roles of the emperor, nobility, priests, warriors, merchants, artisans, commoners, and enslaved people, and identify the importance of religion and human sacrifice.
• Analyse and explain the causes of conflict between the Aztecs and the Spanish, using specific historical evidence such as Spanish demands for gold and alliances with the Tlaxcalans.
• Evaluate the immediate and longer-term consequences of the Spanish conquest for both the Aztecs and the Spanish, using evidence such as demographic collapse, the Columbian Exchange, and the creation of New Spain to support a judgement on whether the arrival of the Spanish was a catastrophe for the Aztecs.
• Assess the extent to which Aztec culture and influence survived after the Spanish conquest, providing examples of continuity in language, food, art, and place-names.
• Explain the impact of new diseases on the Aztec population, using historical data or eyewitness accounts, and relate this impact to wider patterns across the Americas.
• Describe and explain cultural destruction, change, and continuity after the Spanish conquest, including the destruction of temples, religious images, and codices, coerced conversion and the building of churches on temple sites, missionary use of Nahuatl, Indigenous adaptation, and cultural blending.
• Analyse and interpret primary sources by considering authorship, purpose, audience, content, and bias, and use this analysis to draw conclusions about the impact of the Spanish on the Aztecs.