
On November 16, 1532, Atahualpa, ruler of the mighty Inca Empire, agreed to meet with a group of bedraggled foreigners who had come to see him at the town of Cajamarca. Atahualpa, surrounded by a massive army of thousands of warriors, probably assumed he had little to fear from the 160 men who claimed to be emissaries from the king of a faraway land they called "Spain." The Spanish conquistadors, under the command of Francisco Pizarro, treacherously laid a trap for Atahualpa: when he arrived on his litter, the Spaniards streamed out of building where they had hidden, firing their guns and riding their horses, both of which were then unknown in Peru. When the day was over, thousands of native warriors were dead and Atahualpa was captive...and that's when things started to get really ugly.

Comments