Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the king of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
18th-century portrait of Cortés based on the one sent by the conqueror to Paolo Giovio, which has served as a model for many of his representations since the 16th century
Weiditz's depiction of Cortés in 1529
Copy of a portrait of Cortés dated to the year 1525
Cortés scuttling his own fleet off the coast of Veracruz in order to eliminate the possibility of retreat
Conquistadors or conquistadores was a term used to refer to Spanish and Portuguese colonialists of the early modern period. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia, establishing new colonies and trade routes. They brought much of the "New World" under the dominion of Spain and Portugal.
Hernán Cortés led the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and expanded the Spanish Empire in the Americas
Ponce de León and his explorers in Florida searching for the Fountain of Youth
Christopher Columbus and his Spanish crew making their first landfall in the Americas in 1492
Hernando de Soto and Spanish conquistadors seeing the Mississippi River for the first time.
