On 13 August 1521 Tenochtitlan fell to a Spanish-led coalition, ending the Aztec Empire. Nearly four centuries later, on the same date, the fighting for Radzymin marked the start of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920.
The fall of Tenochtitlan
Tenochtitlan was one of the largest cities on earth, an island capital in a highland lake. The siege was won by Hernán Cortés and his many Indigenous allies, above all the Tlaxcalans, against the Mexica under Cuauhtémoc. The city was starved, burned and broken, and disease decided the war as much as steel did.1
The story is often told as a handful of Spaniards toppling an empire. In truth most of the fighting was done by Indigenous allies, and the defeat was decided as much by disease as by weapons.
Warsaw, 1920
Polish accounts usually date the Battle of Warsaw from 13 August 1920, when the fighting for Radzymin on the outskirts of the capital began. Poland shattered the Soviet offensive in a few days of fighting around the city and flung it back east. Our article on the Battle of Warsaw covers the campaign and the phrase "Miracle on the Vistula". › Battle of Warsaw, 1920
Also on this day
- 1704: Battle of Blenheim. On the Danube near Höchstädt in Bavaria, the allied armies of Marlborough and Prince Eugene met the Franco-Bavarian army during the War of the Spanish Succession.
