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1492
The First Peoples: Pre-Columbian Mexico
The Pre-Columbian era was the period of the prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of the Europeans. -
1521
The Age of the Conquest
The Aztec Empire was the last great civilization prior to the arrival of the Spanish. They came into power in 1325 and ruled until 1521. In 1521, Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs and Mexico became a Spanish colony. -
1521
The Founding of an Empire: Sixteenth-Century
While Cortés was conquering Tenochtitlán, no one in Spain paid the least attention; at the moment of victory over the Aztec capital, Cortés remained without official recognition from Charles V. -
1521
The Colony of New Spain
People of either view saw Mexico as a pot of gold to be melted and molded into their own treasure. -
The Bourbon Reforms and Independence (1700-1821)
The Enlightenment brought changes to New Spain in the last century of colonial rule. A new faith in science and reason led the Bourbon monarchy to modernize the administration of the colonies and to squeeze out yet more profits for Spain. -
Years of Chaos (1823-1876)
Mexicans hopes that independence would bring a modernized economy and more egalitarian society were not realized in the next century. Instead, the legacy of the battle for independence was the increased importance of an unscrupulous military and bankrupt treasury. -
The Porfiriato Dictatorship(1876-1910)
For 34 years Mexico was ruled by a man who fought his way into power on the slogan "No reelection": Porfirio Díaz. This dictator left an extraordinary legacy. He attracted foreign capital and modernized the economy. Cities were beautified and the countryside rid of banditry. -
The Revolution of 1910 (1910-1940)
The most devasting civil war in Mexican history produced modern Mexic. In the 10 years of its military phase, between 1910 and 1920, as many as 2 million people may have killed, or one out of every eight Mexicans. -
The Institutionalized Revolution (1940-1988)
Building on the foundations of the revolution, Mexico entered a period of exceptional political stability and extraordinary economic growth and industrialization. The nation approached self- sufficiency in many important commodities and crops. New oil discoveries in the 1980s gave Mexico reserves comparable to the entire Persian Gulf; "petrodollars" brought greater economic and political independence as well as world stature: Mexico became a leader of the developing nations. -
The March toward Democracy (1988-2000)
The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 represented the Mexican government's total abandonment of its protectionist management of the economy that had been in effect since the Revolution of 1910. -
A More Democratic Mexico (2000-2009)
On July 2, 2000, Vicente Fox Quesada was elected president of Mexico, the first in 71 years who was not a member of the PRI. The electoral process was transparently clean and democratic.