Montezuma Castle National Monument, 858 acres (347 hectares), central Ariz.; est. 1906. Montezuma Castle, built c.1250, is a 5-story, 20-room dwelling perched high in the cavity of a cliff. It...

Cuauhtémoc, d. 1525, Aztec emperor. Succeeding the brother of Montezuma II in 1520, Cuauhtémoc failed to unite the native city-states of the Valley of Mexico against the Spanish after the expu...

Allport, Gordon W., 1897–1967, American psychologist, b. Montezuma, Ind. One of the first psychologists to study personality, Allport researched human attitudes, prejudices, and religious beli...

Graun, Carl Heinrich, 1704–59, German composer, best known for his oratorio Der Tod Jesu (1755), for many years performed annually in Germany. As musical director to Frederick the Great, who w...

Cortés, Hernán, or Hernando Cortez, 1485–1547, Spanish conquistador, conqueror of Mexico. Cortés went (1504) first to Hispaniola and later (1511) accompanied Diego de Velázquez to Cuba. In 151...

Tenochtitlán, ancient city in the central valley of Mexico. The capital of the Aztec, it was founded (c.A.D. 1345) on a marshy island in Lake Texcoco. It was a flourishing city (with an estima...

Fool or court jester, a person who entertains with buffoonery and an often caustic wit. In all countries from ancient times and extending into the 18th cent., mental and physical deformity pro...

Aztec, Indian people dominating central Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest. Their language belonged to the Nahuatlan subfamily of Uto-Aztecan languages. They arrived in the Valley of M...

Quetzalcoatl [Nahuatl,=feathered serpent], ancient deity and legendary ruler of the Toltec in Mexico. The name is also that of a Toltec ruler, who is credited with the discovery of corn, the a...

Cliff dwellers, Native Americans of the Anasazi culture who were builders of the ancient cliff dwellings found in the canyons and on the mesas of the U.S. Southwest, principally on the tributa...