📣 This Week In History - The Aztec Empire Fell

Welcome back History Nerds,

We hope you’ve been enjoying this newsletters each week, if you have make sure to respond back to this email right now! Thanks for sticking around, we’ve got another fun week of history to cover this morning as John Cabot claimed Asia this week in history. On a not so fun note, the Aztec Empire fell.. but it is interesting to learn about, so read until the end to see how the empire fell. And if you haven’t already, pour yourself up a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy this week’s edition of the LOL History Newsletter!

Did You Know? On April 1, 1942, during World War II, the U.S. Army secretly launched a plan to build an aircraft carrier made entirely out of ice—yes, ice. The project, called Project Habakkuk, aimed to create floating runways in the Atlantic that couldn’t be sunk by enemy torpedoes. The prototype was built in Canada using a mix of ice and wood pulp called “pykrete,” which was so strong it could stop bullets. The plan melted (literally and figuratively), but for a moment, the Allies were seriously planning to fight the Nazis with frozen science fiction.

During Your History Lesson You’ll Learn About:

• John Cabot's Transatlantic Triumph: Claiming Asia in the New World

• How a Revolution Put Royalty Behind Bars

• NASA's Echo 1 and the Dawn of Satellite Communication

• The Day the Aztec Empire Fell

First Contact: England's Encounter with North America and Its Peoples

In the summer of 1497 on August 10, John Cabot, a Venetian navigator sailing under the English flag, returned from a transatlantic voyage with a bold claim: he had reached Asia. In truth, he had likely landed on the coast of present-day Newfoundland, mistaking the unfamiliar terrain for the fringes of the East. His journey, modest in scale—a single ship with a small crew—was England’s first recorded contact with North America. Presented to King Henry VII, Cabot’s report offered something England lacked: a foothold in the race for overseas expansion.

Though Cabot vanished on a second voyage the following year, his initial landing gave England a claim to the New World, decades before its imperial ambitions fully took shape. For Henry VII, it was a quiet but significant diplomatic win. For the Indigenous peoples already living there, it was the first ripple of a coming tide. Cabot’s voyage marked the start of English exploration across the Atlantic—a beginning that would reshape continents, often at great human cost.

How a Revolution Put Royalty Behind Bars

On August 13, 1792, the French Revolution officially got real. After months of unrest, protests, and a whole lot of bread shortages, the people of France decided they’d had enough of King Louis XVI and his lavish lifestyle. That morning, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were arrested and taken to the Temple prison in Paris. The monarchy, once seen as divinely untouchable, had just been overthrown by the people it ruled.

This wasn’t some royal timeout. It was the beginning of the end for Louis and Marie. What followed was a chaotic spiral of trials, accusations, and revolutionary justice. In 1793, both were guillotined, marking the fall of the French monarchy and a major turning point in European history. The execution of a king wasn’t just shocking—it sent waves across the continent, shaking thrones from Britain to Prussia.

Louis’s imprisonment wasn’t just the end of a reign. It was the moment France flipped the script and tried to build a government without kings, queens, or powdered wigs. It didn’t go smoothly (Reign of Terror, anyone?), but it sparked a new era where power wasn’t inherited—it had to be earned.

Orbiting Reflection: How Echo 1 Shrunk the World in 1960

On August 12, 1960, NASA launched Echo 1, a 100-foot metallic balloon that became the world’s first communications satellite—and a symbol of a new era. Passive and unpowered, Echo 1 did not transmit signals itself but reflected them, bouncing radio, television, and telephone transmissions between distant points on Earth. What it lacked in complexity, it made up for in impact: for the first time, human voices could travel through space and return to Earth across oceans and continents.

Echo 1 was both a scientific milestone and a Cold War statement. Visible to the naked eye as it orbited the Earth, it served as proof of America’s growing technological reach—an answer to the Soviet Union’s early space successes. It paved the way for active satellites and global communication networks that would follow, shrinking the planet in real time. With that reflective sphere floating silently overhead, the space age stopped being theory and became infrastructure.

The Day the Aztec Empire Fell

On August 13, 1521, after nearly three months of brutal fighting, starvation, and disease, the mighty Aztec empire came crashing down. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, along with thousands of Indigenous allies who weren’t exactly fans of the Aztecs, captured Tenochtitlán, the empire’s dazzling capital. Built on a lake with canals and causeways, it was one of the most advanced cities in the world. But even its temples and warriors couldn’t hold off the combined force of cannons, smallpox, and sheer determination.

The siege was devastating. By the time the fighting stopped, tens of thousands were dead, and the once-glorious city lay in ruins. Cortés didn’t waste time mourning. He claimed the land for Spain, renamed the city Mexico City, and began building a new empire on the rubble of the old one. The fall of Tenochtitlán didn’t just mark the end of Aztec rule it kicked off centuries of Spanish colonization in the Americas.

For historians, it’s one of the clearest turning points in world history: when two worlds collided and one was forever changed. The Aztec empire had stood for centuries, but it took just 93 days to collapse. And with that fall came the rise of a new era one shaped by conquest, culture clashes, and a whole lot of gold.

Grow Your Business by Advertising With Us!

Reach thousands of engaged history nerds who love fun, fascinating, and well-told stories from the past. If you want to get your brand in front of curious, history-loving readers, let’s chat!

Learn more about advertising with us!

See You Next Time!

We hope that you enjoyed this edition of the LOL History newsletter! See you next week!

— Evan & Derek - LOL History Co-Founders