Original subtitles

The 8th of November, 1519.

In a magnificent city, surrounded by water,

an all-powerful Aztec ruler prepares to meet a man

like no-one he's ever seen before.

Imagine, in your mind, blue sky, beautiful weather,

sunlight glittering on the lake.

And these, basically, visitors from Mars advance across the causeway.

These are the Spaniards.

They wear unfamiliar clothes and carry strange weapons.

The first meeting between Cortes and Moctezuma

is one of the great moments in human history.

This is the moment when the two halves of humanity come together.

Old world meets new...

..changing forever the course of history.

One, a formidable ruler

who has been dominating his world for 20 years.

The other, one of the most ruthless, effective, brilliant,

brutal opportunists in world history.

This fateful meeting will expose fault lines

at the heart of the Aztec Empire...

..a harsh regime, fuelling resentment...

..and a fateful weakness in the face of an invisible killer.

Ancient Egypt...

..the Roman Empire...

..the Aztecs of Mexico...

..and the Samurai of Japan.

Four great civilisations...

..each a pinnacle of human ingenuity and achievement.

Each lasted for centuries.

Their people thought they would endure forever...

..until suddenly...

CANNON FIRES

..everything changed.

These civilisations faced challenges that are all too familiar today.

Climate catastrophe.

Pandemic.

War.

Challenges for which ancient societies had few solutions.

But what if there was a place that had the answers to what went wrong,

a place full of secrets and stories...

..a repository of memory, stretching back through time?

The British Museum, home to more than eight million artefacts,

is a record of how and why the greatest civilisations

rose to power and then spectacularly fell.

Its treasures are the human traces that survived disaster.

But might they also hold lessons for our own future?

Every civilisation throughout history has had an expiry date.

With great societies,

the seeds of their destruction are sown within the society.

They're already there.

No civilisation ever thinks it's going to fall,

but the question is, what can we learn from the past?

In the shadow of volcanoes...

..on an island in the middle of a vast lake...

..the city of Tenochtitlan is home to around 200,000 people.

It is the dazzling jewel at the heart of the mighty Aztec Empire.

Stretching from coast to coast, across what is modern-day Mexico,

its territory covers over 77,000 square miles.

Tenochtitlan is far more advanced

than most European cities of this age,

five times the size of Henry VIII's London.

Tenochtitlan is not like an old medieval European city.

It was planned in the form of a grid,

rather like Manhattan is today.

The city is green and lush.

Fertile water gardens produce multiple crops each year.

This civilisation created the technology

in order to use this water

and also to construct fields on the water.

And these people, it was possible to sow corn, to sow beans,

to sow tomatoes on these fields.

You have all kinds of foods - chillies, peppers.

You can buy fish prewrapped in a maize leaf.

So you can kind of take away your dinner, if you'd like.

They have huge kind of seething markets

where tens of thousands of people go shopping every day.

This city's teeming with life.

There are priests and soldiers, weavers, traders.

The city is overwhelming in its colours and its smells

and sort of the atmosphere of excitement and bustle.

Much of what we know of this civilisation

and the clues to its catastrophic collapse...

..lie in a remarkable set of books that survive from that time,

written by the Aztecs themselves.

We have hundreds and hundreds of pages in the Aztec language.

They're called the Codices.

Today, we can look at the beautiful images and the alphabetic writing

and learn a great deal about their political history,

their religious beliefs.

The Aztecs have a very long tradition of writing.

This is my mother tongue

and this is a language that my parents transmitted to me

in the 20th century.

We feel very proud to find a very strong legacy

in the history of the Aztec society.

You're hearing things that were said,

performances that were given, prayers that were uttered.

It's really quite extraordinary.

The picture that emerges from these manuscripts

is of a community bound together by a level of equality -

very unlike Europe at the time.

Aztec society is incredibly progressive.

You have institutional education for boys and girls.

They instil the children with an understanding

of being part of Aztec machine.

Men and women have very specific and very different roles,

but both are regarded as equally essential

to the successful perpetuation of their culture.

The empire and its five million inhabitants...

..are under the control of a single all-powerful ruler.

Moctezuma was a man in his early 40s.

He had been emperor for 17 years and a very successful one.

His name, Moctezuma, means "frowns like a lord",

so presumably he was high-handed and had a temper.

Moctezuma became ruler after the death of his uncle.

He did not inherit the throne. He was chosen.

The Aztecs are so interested in who's going to do a good job

that that takes over from who is the closest relative.

Montezuma looks like a good bet as ruler.

He is a brilliant, effective warrior.

There's good evidence that he himself went out into the field

and led armies and was a successful general.

However, in private, Moctezuma appears to be an emperor

who likes to sit in Tenochtitlan and read books

and learn about his empire.

He is intelligent and he has a thirst for knowledge.

Moctezuma believes in his own ability

to understand and control the world around him.

His people revere him as a demigod.

But soon he will face a challenge

for which he is completely unprepared.

1,500 miles away, on the island of Cuba,

a Spanish adventurer is plotting a bold expedition.

His name is Hernan Cortes.

The single most important thing about Hernan Cortes

is that he is a nobody.

He was born in 1485 in Extremadura,

a kind of scrubby, frontier bit of Spain.

He could have stayed in Spain, but he's clearly very ambitious.

It has been nearly 30 years

since the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.

Since then, Spanish explorers, mercenaries and merchants

have been travelling to the Caribbean in their thousands...

..looking for land, gold and glory.

They are known as conquistadors.

Everyone who's going to the new world

is going to seek their fortune.

It's the American dream.

It's the idea of anyone can go and make something of themselves.

They're a bit like venture capitalists investing in tech.

They're looking for the next frontier, the next big thing.

Cortes, growing up in Spain,

saw ships laden with treasure arriving from the new world.

He followed the lure and joined the ranks of the conquistadors.

Cortes wants money and gold, and probably also fame and recognition.

Cortes is a narcissist.

He's possibly a sociopath.

He's a clever guy, but he's an awful person.

Cortes will sacrifice friendships and betray his colleagues

in order to get what he wants.

Arguably, Cortes is kind of a monster.

Cortes has set his sights on the mainland to the west.

A previous expedition has explored its coast

and brought back tales of a mysterious kingdom beyond,

said to be laden with gold.

He starts drumming up support and gathering men,

promising them great wealth if they come with him.

Cortes is often described as a very Machiavellian kind of character,

very manipulative.

He's highly ambitious.

Leading 11 ships and some 500 men...

..Cortes's thirst for gold is about to take him into the unknown...

..and into the heart of the most powerful warrior culture

in the Americas.

Do Cortes and any of his men have any sense of Tenochtitlan,

of the Aztec Empire,

of the extraordinary power of this civilisation?

I think the answer is clearly no.

Throughout his rule, Moctezuma has ruthlessly expanded his empire...

..backed by an army of some 200,000 warriors...

..inspired by the ferocious power of the apex predators

that hunt in the wilds of the Aztec world.

Everything in nature, whether it be animals, or mountains,

or plants, or trees, is seen as part of their worldview.

They feel that there are strong spiritual bonds there.

Aztec warriors even dress as the animals

whose primal violence they seek to harness.

Eagle and jaguar warriors

were the two highest orders in the Aztec army.

They symbolised bravery, proximity to power and to creation.

The Aztecs aren't just a fearsome military culture.

Their religious beliefs also lead them

to practise a terrifying ritual.

It's hard to get away from sacrifice when it comes to the Aztecs.

The popular image of Aztec culture is basically they love a sacrifice.

They love nothing more than plunging a knife,

ripping out your heart and holding it up to a baying mob.

Everybody's covered in blood.

But it's not how the Aztecs behaved.

They almost certainly saw these

as very serious kind of religious rituals.

This knife clearly is an incredible symbolic object.

Knives like this are often used as part of ritual offerings.

The blade is crafted from razor-sharp flint...

..the handle carved in wood...

..then decorated in mother of pearl, turquoise and malachite...

..to depict one of the most formidable of all Aztec fighters...

..the eagle warrior.

The black patches at the tips of the eagles' wings,

those are singeing from the sun,

because supposedly they were the animals that stood the closest

to the sun at its creation.

The Aztecs see it as their duty to uphold the balance of the cosmos.

To achieve this, they must feed the sun and the earth...

..with blood.

The most common ritual sacrifice

takes place on top of the temple pyramid.

Four priests would stretch the arms and legs of the person backwards

over a pointed stone.

They stretch the arms of the victim backwards...

..and then a fifth priest removes the heart from the ribcage,

which is extended...

..and the heart is given to the gods.

Human sacrifice also allows Moctezuma

to rule his empire with absolute authority.

This isn't just about saying, "Look how many people will die."

It's about saying, "Look how powerful our gods are."

It's about Moctezuma being at the heart of that power

and being the figure around which the cosmos is swirling.

He is the man who has to hold all those forces in balance

and that is a big statement about power.

The Aztecs wanted to frighten people.

Human sacrifice became a weapon in their war against others.

For now, Moctezuma is terrifying his enemies into submission.

But he is about to face an entirely new kind of opponent.

Two months after setting out from Cuba,

the conquistador Hernan Cortes reaches the coastline

of the Aztec Empire.

When the Spaniards first arrive on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico,

their expedition is being watched.

It's the first time that the Aztec people are observing strange people.

Their skin was, more or less, white.

They were using swords, riding horses.

These animals were not known in Central Mexico.

They have ships that are large.

They have different clothing and weaponry.

They are hairier, smellier, and the Spaniards seem and are grubby.

Moctezuma's spies are watching...

..and he soon hears reports of the strange new arrivals.

He could crush the Spaniards, but he chooses to let them live.

Moctezuma is curious and he wants to see them.

If an alien spaceship landed and aliens who looked human

got out and walked around, your first instinct wouldn't be,

"We must immediately kill them."

You'd want to talk to them and find out where they've come from.

He cannot possibly think that they pose a threat

to his life or to the survival of his empire.

Moctezuma sends a message to the newcomers,

intended to show his strength.

But it's a message that will be misread, with tragic consequences.

He dispatches a gift of gold.

The Aztecs had a special name for gold,

which was the excrement of the gods,

something so precious and so beautiful that only gods could do.

Few items made of gold from the Aztec world still exist.

We often hear the Aztecs preferred turquoise,

but this is really not true.

Once they discover the beauty, they go crazy with gold.

We see the Aztecs being, in a way, like nouveau riche

that has acquired wealth suddenly and is showing it off.

It's the equivalent to a Rolex watch.

For the Aztecs, gold is not just valuable, it is sacred -

a sign of the presence of gods on Earth,

and through intricate craftsmanship,

a way to harness supernatural forces.

This ring is depicting a jaguar,

the most powerful feline in the Americas.

This could have been worn by a noble or a priest

or a distinguished warrior.

So, it's a symbol really of power and it's a symbol of strength.

Moctezuma's gift of gold is extremely valuable to the Aztecs,

but it is not meant as a welcome.

I would read that as a display of power, or else a grand display,

"Look how rich I am, I can give you all of these things,

"so you should go away."

The Spanish, of course, see it as a submission -

'Oh, he's agreed that he'll give us all these gifts

"and so we're going to be in charge."

Moctezuma believes he's shown his strength.

What he fails to realise

is that he has just made Cortes more determined than ever.

It is a catastrophic mistake.

Four months later,

Cortes and his men are forging a path inland...

..up through the lowland jungle.

They are beginning to understand that to get their gold,

they will have to take on a vast warrior empire.

But then Cortes discovers a weakness that he can exploit.

There are plenty of people who've been suppressed by the Aztecs

who might want to take advantage of the arrival

of a new power player in the territory.

There is a simmering resentment against Moctezuma.

The source of this resentment

is encoded in a remarkable object from the Aztec world.

This is a human existence that has been transformed into a work of art.

Beneath a layer of precious stones is a human skull.

We call it the decorated skull.

But it's not a decorated skull. It's a power object.

Its mosaic covering is of dazzling turquoise, black lignite...

..and red oyster shell...

..precious materials Moctezuma demands

from the wider Aztec Empire...

..part of a harsh system of taxation imposed on his subjects.

The city of Tenochtitlan is a parasite on other territories,

so tribute can encompass everything from raw materials and currency,

so things like gold and cacao and cotton,

to fully-created warrior outfits

and even, in some cases, sacrificial victims.

The richly decorated skull attached to a deerskin belt

was designed to be worn by an Aztec warrior,

strapped to his back to strike awe into those that followed.

The idea that this skull mask could be attached to the body,

looking behind you as you move forward, as a priest or a warrior,

that in some senses, here is this object

that talks about the overcoming of death.

I can imagine the warrior going into battle wearing this thing,

somehow feeling invincible...

..protected, being reinforced in their own inner potency.

The decorated skull, built from cruel tribute,

is a symbol of Aztec domination...

..but it also holds a warning for Emperor Moctezuma.

The danger for him is that there will be some people who think,

"The Aztecs are very overbearing.

"This guy Moctezuma, you know, he's a real menace.

"I can't wait to see the back of him."

And that, of course, means that there are people who,

if a new group entered the arena,

would be very keen to ally with them against Moctezuma.

It's a curse often to be in a position of power.

You are in a position that is incredibly precarious.

In the case of the Aztec Empire, it was even worse,

because this was an empire that was recently built upon

conquest of multiple different groups and ethnicities.

It was bloated, overtaxed, unequal and fragile.

Cortes and his men press on...

..and now they discover that Moctezuma's empire

doesn't just harbour people who resent his rule...

..there are also those prepared to resist.

There are city states within Mexico

which don't send tribute to Tenochtitlan and actually defy it.

Most famously, its big rival is a place called Tlaxcala.

Tlaxcala is a pocket of independent territory

that lies directly on Cortes's route to the Aztec capital.

When the Spanish first arrive,

Tlaxcalan warriors try to drive them back.

But Cortes has a secret weapon...

..someone who can help him negotiate with the people of Tlaxcala.

When the Spaniards first arrive on the coast,

Cortes is very lucky that the Spaniards are given 20 girls

to be part of the Spanish encourage.

Among them is a young woman who will help change the course of history.

In Spanish, she is known as Malinche.

The Aztecs call her Malintzin.

Malintzin is said to have been born in the household of a nobleman

very near the Gulf of Mexico.

Between eight and 12 years old, she was captured and sold into slavery.

We do not know how many people had owned her.

Hernan Cortes gave Malintzin

to the highest-ranking Spaniard in his group,

who was very impressed by Malintzin because she was beautiful

and also she was very confident.

Malintzin soon proves extremely useful to Cortes.

Born just outside the Aztec Empire, she speaks their language.

Now, she learns Spanish as well.

Almost overnight, she moves from being a sexual servant

to being a translator,

directly engaging and working with Hernan Cortes.

Images of Malintzin herself can be seen in the Aztec record books.

She often appears either as large or larger than Hernan Cortes,

which points to her importance.

Malintzin is helping Cortes, but she has her own agenda.

She holds a deep grudge against the Aztecs.

It was they who tore her from her family and sold her into slavery.

Malintzin is really advancing her own interests.

We can well imagine that it might have seemed

like an opportunity for her to escape slavery.

The Tlaxcalans' own records capture the moment when,

with Malintzin as his translator,

Cortes tries to persuade them to help him.

The Spanish have to work really hard

before the Tlaxcalans eventually decide,

"OK, it looks like we might have a chance of defeating the Aztecs,

"so let's join forces."

Six months after setting foot on the mainland,

Cortes and his men, backed by 6,000 of their new local allies,

cross the mountain passes surrounding Tenochtitlan.

They finally get their first glimpse of the spectacular Aztec capital.

They start to proceed across the causeway.

Cortes and his captains leading this column of Spaniards.

They have all their finery, they want to impress their hosts.

Moctezuma believes in the strength and power of his empire...

..so he welcomes the Spanish.

But he also reminds them who has the upper hand.

There really is an enormous power imbalance,

and Moctezuma emphasises that power imbalance

by making Cortes wait for ages and ages and ages.

He has to wait for absolutely hours

before, eventually, he meets Moctezuma himself.

This moment is, I think, the most richly symbolic,

the most momentous meeting of two human beings in world history...

..because it stands for something much bigger,

which is the European discovery of the new world

and of course the new world's discovery of Europeans.

And all of that is embodied in these two extraordinary people.

First comes an exchange of gifts.

Cortes presents a necklace of pearls and glass beads.

It's no match for the craftsmanship Moctezuma can call upon.

One written account records the gift

of a carved serpent covered in turquoise.

Remarkably, an Aztec artefact

to match that description has survived...

..and it holds clues to the message Moctezuma meant to convey.

The double-headed serpent is this absolutely exquisite object

that, from the moment you first see it, you can never forget,

because it imprints itself on your memory.

Snakes for the Aztecs represent fertility,

they represent life and death.

The shedding of the skin symbolises rebirth.

This is to be seen, to be admired, to be shown to the world.

It's part of the pride that the Aztecs have.

It's a display of power.

The person that made it must have been aware

of the emergent power of this object

and been spellbound by it as it was being made.

The gift is meant to impress Cortes, but it may also be a warning.

The double-headed serpent is an ambiguous symbol.

It can be a negative omen

because you have the two of them pulling in different directions,

so there's that slight hint of danger underlying it.

If you were a betting man and you're looking at these two blokes,

you'd say, "Come on, there's only going to be one winner here."

And it's not the Spaniard,

who's got a few hundred adventurers and ruffians at his back.

It's the bloke with a massive capital city and millions of people.

It seems like no match at all.

But Moctezuma critically underestimates the threat.

He treats Cortes like a friendly visitor, a courtly prince,

when in reality, he's a ruthless mercenary.

He says to Cortes, "Welcome, this is your home,

"please come into the city, everything is yours."

You know, "We're so delighted that you've come."

This was basically like people who say, "Oh, come into my house",

but you never really mean it.

You're saying polite things, these are the courtly conventions,

courtesies that you extend to your guests.

That's what Moctezuma is doing.

And I think the Spanish take that literally.

Cortes is like, "Great", you know, "Let's go."

The Spaniards, along with the Tlaxcalan leaders,

take up residence inside the Aztec capital.

Moctezuma thinks, "I am much more powerful than the Tlaxcalans,

"and these guys will be overwhelmed by my city and me and my power

"and probably they'll abandon the Tlaxcalans

"and come and work for me."

Cortes is clearly in awe of this wonderful city.

One of the other conquistadors later says,

"We wondered if it was not a dream because it was all so beautiful."

He and his men are housed in a palace

next door to Moctezuma's own palace.

We have this sense that he's building a relationship,

a rapport with Moctezuma.

The Spaniards are engaging in a kind of prolonged diplomatic encounter.

They go hunting together.

They were very impressed by the market.

They saw the insides of temples.

They were taken by boat to the other side of the lake shore

to see other little towns and villages.

The more the Spanish see of this fabled land,

the more desperate they are to get their hands on it.

The problem for Cortes is that there's no apparent end point

to this prolonged period of diplomacy.

After five months of diplomatic stalemate,

Cortes receives news that forces him to act.

Cortes learned that some other Spaniards had arrived on the coast.

He knew he had a problem,

because he didn't have the permission to be there.

Cortes has embarked on his bold venture

without getting approval from the Spanish authorities.

Cortes has gone rogue.

Effectively, Cortes is attempting to defeat an empire

without actually having a licence from the king of Spain

to do what he's doing.

The new arrivals are here under orders to arrest Cortes.

He needs a bargaining chip...

..so he takes a huge risk.

Cortes thought it would go better for him

if he could say that he had control of the kingdom

through a hostage prince.

This was an age-old way of making war in Europe.

You take a prince hostage and then you have control over their people.

He had the nerve to send a group of men

into the throne room where Moctezuma was...

..and literally take him prisoner.

Malinche is doing all the translating,

and they say, "Look, you're coming with us."

And he's just so stunned, it's a kind of paralysis...

..that he's like, "OK, I'll go."

It's such a mad gamble, such a mad thing for Cortes to do,

to take Moctezuma prisoner.

We get this sense of Cortes being this amazing maverick

who makes the right choices at the right time.

What's often forgotten is the fact that he is a desperate man.

He can't turn back.

He's got no choice, so he may as well plough on.

The gamble pays off.

And Cortes bribes the new arrivals to join him in his quest for gold.

Cortes is able,

through his usual mix of military and diplomatic prowess,

to win the new Spaniards over.

In fact, it takes almost no winning over at all.

He now has 800 additional soldiers.

But having kidnapped Moctezuma,

Cortes has made the whole population of the Aztec capital his enemy.

Once they have taken Moctezuma prisoner,

the mood in the city has definitely darkened.

There's a few hundred Spaniards, they're in this palace,

but around them, it's not merely the city

with hundreds of thousands of people,

but it's the whole massive empire.

A band of Aztec warriors stages an attack on the palace

where Moctezuma is being held prisoner.

The emperor is ordered by Cortes to try and defuse the situation.

Moctezuma was forced on a balcony to appeal to his people.

They're kind of using him as a bit of a hostage, a human shield,

possibly still hoping that he can act as an intermediary

with the people, although I think it's pretty clear by this point

that his authority has drained away

and that people are no longer listening to him.

The emperor has lost all control over his people.

Once hailed as a demigod, he is now powerless...

..and all too mortal.

Moctezuma is a hostage who has outlived his usefulness.

We know the Spanish kill all their other hostages,

and there are sources that say

the Spanish basically came into his room and killed him.

The corpse of the once mighty leader

of Central America's greatest civilisation

is left on the street to rot.

Before the Aztec warriors can take their revenge...

..the Spanish decide to grab what they can and make their escape.

They're sneaking through the streets, which seem deserted.

"How are we going to get out of here with our lives?"

They are seen by a woman who's collecting water

and she raises the alarm.

And then it's as though the whole city

is pouring out of the buildings.

Canoes are swarming around the Spaniards.

The mortality rate is just piling up.

Horses are being killed, people are being killed by the hundreds.

In the chaos, around two thirds of the Spaniards die - some 600 men.

Cortes himself is quite badly injured, but he survives.

This night has gone down in history, with the name of La Noche Triste -

"The Night Of Sorrows" - because for the Spaniards, it is a tragedy.

From the indigenous point of view,

maybe we might think of it as more like a night of triumph.

Finally, the Aztecs have rid their capital city of the newcomers.

The whole city celebrates.

The Spaniards are gone.

But they have left behind a parting gift...

..an invisible threat that will bring the Aztecs to their knees.

After the Spaniards left, for a few weeks, people were very happy.

But then people began to die.

For the Aztecs, can you imagine the horror,

as this silent, unexplainable killer first appears among them?

Tantalising evidence for this mystery disease

may be embedded in the most iconic artefact from the Aztec world.

Masks were a central element of Aztec life.

Turquoise masks were usually placed on corpses at the time of a funeral.

Here, we see an Aztec...

..with ammonite-like eyes...

..aquiline nose...

..and beautiful teeth.

But this mask contains some unexpected details.

We see these stones.

They stand out,

so the imperfections of the skin are being shown.

We see the man being afflicted.

He is showing us what he's suffering from.

The lumps on the skin might represent the disease of leprosy,

widespread in the Americas.

But they are also a remarkable match for a killer plague

that the Spanish have introduced to the new world...

..smallpox.

It seems very evident to me

that those bigger bits of turquoise on the surface,

that is the lumps that you would find on the face

of somebody afflicted by smallpox.

It's hard not to associate the mask with exactly that -

this wave of mortal disease that decimated 40% of the population.

Since the Spaniards' arrival...

..smallpox has spread inland from the coast...

..before engulfing the Aztec capital itself.

This population was virgin population,

in the sense that they had never been exposed

to these western microbes.

They all got sick.

They had no medicine that worked for it, no way to understand it.

It was psychologically devastating.

Smallpox is one of the most deadly diseases

we've had in the history of humanity.

Infectious enough to spread quite quickly,

but deadly enough that actually it kills a third of people infected.

It is higher than SARS, which is 10%.

It's higher than Covid-19, which was, you know, 1-2%.

When you get it, you start feeling unwell -

high fever, headaches, vomiting.

The next stage is the tongue and the mouth

get covered with pus-filled little sacks.

Your skin starts rising up,

almost like little peas underneath your skin, incredibly painful,

which soon come all the way up and develop into scabs.

Once it's in your home, everyone will get it,

and then it's the question of how many will survive.

Disease is the greatest reaper across human history.

More people have fallen to pathogens than they have to any other cause.

Epidemics are a shock.

But ultimately, what's more important is,

how vulnerable is a society which is hit by an epidemic?

Nearly 14 months after he fled the Aztec capital,

Cortes has returned to a civilisation in its death throes.

Now, backed by his local allies, he launches a brutal attack.

They're fighting a disease-ridden, weakened, starving population.

And I think that is massive

in explaining how he's able to achieve what he does.

The Aztecs insist on fighting to the death.

So the Spanish start moving through the city, practising total war.

It's simply the only way the Spanish are able to force the Aztecs,

this proud warrior culture, to surrender.

Finally, the mighty warrior empire of the Aztecs...

..has fallen.

The Aztec Empire fell apart within two years.

This makes it one of the fastest collapses throughout world history.

That was due to the sheer variety of threats it faced.

An overbearing leader who demanded tax and tribute,

a disaffected people with nothing to lose...

..and a ruthless opponent

who exploited these fault lines for his own gain.

Once you think about the huge amount of indigenous people

who were not happy and were ready to fight against the Aztecs,

you get a very different view of the situation.

This is an indigenous civil war,

an empire that has collapsed in on itself.

A collapse hastened by an unforeseen killer.

Disease is still one of the greatest threats to civilisation.

We do need to look at our collective vulnerability.

Just think of what happened with Covid.

Pathogens always seem to be two steps ahead of us

and we're trying to catch up in that race.

The story of the Aztecs is ultimately a story

about the arrival of the unexpected,

and I think that has to be a pretty sobering lesson for us.

We are deluded if we think that everything we take for granted

will be here forever.

Japan, a unique culture, closed off to the West for centuries...

..is on a collision course with the modern world.

As foreign aggressors arrive on their shores...

..Japan's ancient warrior class, the samurai,

must fight to save their way of life.