<Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, beginning in February 1519, was one of the most significant events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas . Following Christopher Columbus' establishment of permanent settlement in the Caribbean, the Spanish authorized expeditions or entradas for the discovery, conquest, and colonization of new territory, using existing Spanish settlements as a base . </P> <P> The Spanish campaign began in February 1519, following the Spanish arrival in Yucatán in 1517 . Two years later the Spanish set sail, thus beginning the campaign of colonization of the Americas . The Spanish campaign declared victorious on August 13, 1521, when a coalition army of Spanish forces and native Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés and Xicotencatl the Younger captured the emperor Cuauhtemoc and Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire . </P> <P> During the campaign, Cortés was given support from a number of tributaries and rivals of the Aztecs, including the Totonacs, and the Tlaxcaltecas, Texcocans, and other city - states particularly bordering Lake Texcoco . In their advance, the allies were tricked and ambushed several times by the people they encountered . After eight months of battles and negotiations, which overcame the diplomatic resistance of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II to his visit, Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on November 8, 1519, where he took up residence, welcomed by Moctezuma . When news reached Cortés of the death of several of his men during the Aztec attack on the Totonacs in Veracruz, he took the opportunity to take Moctezuma captive, Moctezuma allowed himself to be captured as a diplomatic gesture . Capturing the cacique or indigenous ruler was standard operating procedure for Spaniards in their expansion in the Caribbean, so capturing Moctezuma had considerable precedent, which might well have included those in Spain during the Christian reconquest of territory held by Muslims . </P>

Who conquered the aztecs and brought about the end of the empire