• https://www.loc.gov/item/2021668125 1400 to 1599 "The Aubin Tonalamatl is a pictorial codex that reads from top to bottom and from right to left. It originally included another two folios that have since been lost. The Tonalamatl (bark paper [or book] of the days) was used by Aztec priests in a divination ritual. Tonalli means "day" and amatl refers to paper made from the inner bark of trees of the genus Ficus. The work contains a religious calendar of 260 days, the Tonalpohualli, which was used as a ritual and daily devotional for the celebration of holidays and served as the basis of astrological birth-chart predictions." Library of Congress Books

Mesoamerica Youtube Links

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P_euomdHOU Jan 25, 2016 After establishing a colony in Mexico, Spanish nobleman Hernan Cortes: Fast Facts rallied native allies and conquered the Aztec Empire. Learn more about what led him to destroy one of the greatest civilizations in human history in this video. #Biography​

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOmzpKTfaz4 Feb 1, 2016 Hernando De Soto began his career in exploration at age 14 when he traveled to the West Indies. Find out how he became known as the first European to discover the Mississippi River in this video.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGAWnyH_BYQ Jan 18, 2016 Spanish conquistador and eventual Governor of Peru Francisco Pizarro acquired wealth through kidnapping, ransom, and murder. Find out more about his violent rise to power in this video. #Biography​

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxHf_2zTcQo Feb 8, 2016 Nobleman and explorer Vasco da Gama established a trade route that linked Portugal directly with the Indian spice market. Learn how he managed to sail around Africa's Cape of Good Hope in this video. #Biography​

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZj7acYZ19w May 12, 2020 Join the Aztec midwife Xoquauhtli as she tends to her patients and honors the warrior goddess Teteoinnan at a festival ushering in the season of warfare. The midwife Xoquauhtli has a difficult choice to make. She owes a debt to her patron Teteoinnan, the female warrior goddess at the center of the Aztec seasonal festival, who must be kept happy or she will bring bad luck. Xoquauhtli should participate in the festival today, but one of her patients could go into labor any minute. Kay Read outlines a day in the life of an Aztec midwife. View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-aztec-midwife-kay-read.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6teBcfKpik&t Nov 26, 2019 Trace the 9,000 year old history of the domestication of corn, or maize, and its effects on global agriculture. Corn currently accounts for more than one tenth of our global crop production. And over 99% of cultivated corn is the exact same type: Yellow Dent #2. This means that humans grow more Yellow Dent #2 than any other plant on the planet. So how did this single variety of this single plant become the biggest success story in agricultural history? Chris Kniesly investigates the rise of this wonder-crop. View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-corn-conquered-the-world-chris-a-kniesly.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2vzrQWny_c Oct 21, 2019 Discover the Maya myth of Venus, the morning star plotting revenge on his brother, the sun, and his allies. Chak Ek’, the morning star, rose from the underworld to the surface of the eastern sea and on into the heavens. His brother K’in Ahaw, the sun, followed. Though Chak Ek’ had risen first, K’in Ahaw outshone him, and the resentful Chak Ek’ descended back to the underworld to plot against his brother and his allies. Gabrielle Vail details the Maya myth of the morning star. View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-mayan-myth-of-the-morning-star.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMPG-2vXi-s May 9, 2019 Discover the myth of how the weak and pimply Aztec god Nanahuatl sacrificed himself to become Lord Sun and created a new world. Nanahuatl, weakest of the Aztec gods, sickly and covered in pimples, had been chosen to form a new world. There had already been four worlds, each set in motion by its own “Lord Sun,” and each had been destroyed. For a new world to be created, another god had to leap into the great bonfire and become the fifth sun. Will Nanahuatl complete the sacrifice? Kay A. Read recounts the myth of the sun. View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-aztec-myth-of-the-unlikeliest-sun-god-kay-almere-read.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhb59zhlzPk Feb 5, 2021 The Aztecs have built an empire that dominates Central America. But it will be destroyed because of a domino effect. 7,000 miles away in Turkey, the trading center of Constantinople is overrun by an Islamic army, in Season 1, Episode 7, "New World." #MankindTheStoryofAllofUs​

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK4ypIfEkjg Jul 25, 2020 In less than 200 years the Aztec's transformed themselves from a band of wandering nomads to one of the greatest civilization the Americas had ever known, in Season 1, Episode 3, "The Aztecs". #EngineeringanEmpire​

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE65Y8-CvQs Aug 1, 2020 At the height of its glory, this mysterious civilization ruled a territory of 125,000 square miles across parts of Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize, in Season 1, Episode 5, "The Maya". #EngineeringanEmpire​

Mesoamerica Table of Contents