when did the spanish first come to mexico
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish made landfall in Mexico in 1517. A Spanish settler in Cuba, Hernán Cortés, led an expedition (entrada) to Mexico, landing in February 1519, following an earlier expedition led by Juan de Grijalva to Yucatán in 1517. Two years later Cortés and his retinue set sail, thus beginning the expedition of exploration and conquest.[8] The Spanish campaign against the Aztec Empire had its final victory on August 13, 1521, when a coalition army of Spanish forces and native Tlaxcalan warriors led by Cortés and Xicotencatl the Younger captured the emperor Cuauhtemoc and Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. The fall of Tenochtitlan marks the beginning of Spanish rule in central Mexico, and they established their capital of Mexico City on the ruins of Tenochtitlan.
Spanish colonization of the Americas Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus and continuing for over three centuries, the Spanish Empire would expand across the Caribbean Islands, half of South America, most of Central America and much of North America (including present day Mexico, Florida and the Southwestern and Pacific Coastal regions of the United States). It is estimated that during the colonial period (1492–1832), a total of 1.86 million Spaniards settled in the Americas and a further 3.5 million immigrated during the post-colonial era (1850–1950).