What if the Aztecs Beat the Spanish? - Simplified | AlterHistory

One spear. One flag. Three hundred years of history. July 7th, 1520. Hernán Cortés has 1,300 starving men, no artillery, and somewhere between 20,000 and 200,000 Aztec warriors surrounding him in an open field outside Otumba. By every reasonable measure, the Spanish conquest of Mexico ends here. It doesn't. Because one man on a horse throws one lance at one commander wearing a golden standard strapped to his back — and an entire army loses its signal. But what if that spear misses? In this animated alternate history video, we run the timeline where Cortés dies face-down in a field: the expedition is wiped out, Cuitláhuac becomes the emperor who ended the conquistadors, and the Aztec Empire wins the war it was always going to lose anyway. Because smallpox was already loose in the Valley of Mexico before the lance ever left anyone's hand. 📜 Covered in this video: - La Noche Triste — the night retreat from Tenochtitlan, June 30th 1520 - Why Narváez's recruits drowned carrying stolen gold - Moctezuma II's death and who actually killed him - The Battle of Otumba explained simply - How Aztec battlefield command actually worked - The 1520 smallpox outbreak and the 90% population collapse - Who would have conquered Mexico if Cortés never did No genius general. No miracle. Just one lance, one banner, and a virus that didn't care who won. If you enjoy alternate history, animated history explainers, and Oversimplified-style storytelling, like and subscribe for more. 🎬 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@AlterHistoryOfficial #AlternateHistory #AztecEmpire #HernanCortes #HistoryAnimation #Oversimplified Thank you for watching! Same genre as Oversimplified. Different obsession: the timelines that didn't happen. Copyright disclaimer — We do not give anyone permission to translate and/or reupload our videos or designs on YouTube or other social media platforms. Music by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com/) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/