Si Sheppard – How did a few hundred Spanish soldiers topple two empires?

Key points

• The conquests of the Aztec and Inca empires might be the most shocking events in human history.1
• Hernan Cortés and some hundreds of Conquistadors landed on a new continent they knew basically nothing about, and within 2 and a half years, conquered the 6 million strong Aztec empire.1
• Then, a decade later, Francisco Pizarro did the same thing to an Incan Empire of some 10 million inhabitants.1
• In both cases, the Conquistadors consistently beat native armies while being literally 100x (or even in some cases 1000x) outnumbered - and in many cases, did so without taking a single casualty.1

Sources (1)

• [1]Si Sheppard – How did a few hundred Spanish soldiers topple two empires?
  Dwarkesh Podcast · Oct 1, 03:28 PM

  New episode with military historian Si Sheppard.

  The conquests of the Aztec and Inca empires might be the most shocking events in human history.

Extractive summary: sentences quoted from the sources.