Olmec clay statue ca. 1100-500 BC - Olmec history Why are the Olmec important? The earliest state government in North or South America was the Olmec. They formed their state about 1200 BC. [...]
Aztec brazier (about 1300 AD) Mexica people move to Mexico Beginning in the 1100s AD, the Medieval Warm Period seems to have made it too hard to live where the Mexica were in [...]
Mexican history: Tenochtitlan under attack (painted in the 1600s) The Aztecs in Mexico In 1500 AD, the Aztec controlled most of what is now Mexico. People also called them the Mexica. More [...]
South American history: Aztec doctor treating people with smallpox (1500s AD, Codex Mendoza) The Inca, Brazil, and Chile In 1500 AD, the Inca Empire dominated the east coast of South America. Further north, [...]
A big rubber tree in Mexico Olmec people, living in southern Mexico, invented rubber about 1600 BC. It was just as they were beginning to build their empire. Rubber starts out as [...]
Silver mining slaves at Laurion, near Athens Why did people want silver? People first mined silver in the Bronze Age. Like gold, silver is a great way to help people trade. [...]
Brigham Young in the 1840s And after they killed Joseph Smith? After a mob killed Joseph Smith, the Mormons chose a new leader, Brigham Young (BRIG-am yung) and wisely left Illinois. The [...]
What Europeans were claiming In 1803, the French emperor Napoleon needed money to rebuild France's army after the French Revolution. So he agreed to sell France's land in North America to the newly [...]
Ohlone people crossing San Francisco Bay, with a European wool blanket (Louis Choris, 1816 AD) Native people in California In 1500 AD, California was a popular place to live. About [...]
Early American government: Juan de Onate, the first Spanish governor, marked this rock in New Mexico to show he had been there (1605). American government in the 1500s Throughout the 1500s, [...]
