Mr. Dorrough’s History Class

As amazing as it may sound, the Aztecs built a city in the middle of a lake. This city was called Tenochtitlan. Over time they developed a complex city with floating farms and causeways connecting the city to the main land.

The story of the founding of Tenochtitlan has has significant meaning to Mexico today. The Aztecs were a divided group of wandering tribes in the mid fourteenth century. They believed that the god Huitzilopochtli commanded that the tribes would wander without a home until they saw an eagle eating a snake while perched on a cactus. When they saw this sign they were to build a great city. The Aztecs saw the egal on a small island in lake Texcoco.

The city itself was founded in 1325. At first it wasn’t very impressive, but by 1428 the Aztec empire had become powerful, and Tenochtitlan was the most important city in all of Mesoamerica. During the reign of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan was one of the largest cities in the world, with over 200,000 inhabitants. It was bigger than most cities in Europe.

When the Spanish come to Mexico they were surprised by the magnificence of Tenochtitlan. Unlike the cities of Europe, it was clean and “fresh.” The Aztecs washed and swept the streets daily. They used an aqueduct to bring in fresh water from the mountains so that they would not have to use the lake water for drinking. One account gives us a an insight into what Europeans thought about the city.

“And when we saw all those towns and villages built in the water, and other great towns on dry land, and that straight and level causeway leading to Mexico, we were astounded. These great towns . . . and buildings rising from the water, all made of stone, seemed like an enchanted vision. . . . Indeed some of our soldiers asked whether it was not all a dream . . . It was all so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse of things never heard of, seen, or dreamed of before.”

—Written by Bernal Díaz del Castillo in The Conquest of New Spain

In class today we reviewed the Standard guide for chapter 25.

We completed the Pre Reading questions for Chapter 25 as classwork.

For homework I assigned essential question #1.

Downloads for class today:

Chapter Twenty Five Standards Guide: Daily Life in Tenochtitlan

Vocabulary Map

Picture Dictionary

Budget Vocabulary Matrix