The Spanish Conquest of Peru

About five hundred years ago, small groups of Spanish people came into North (Mexico) and South America (Peru) carrying guns and swords. The Spanish conquered two empires (the Aztecs and the Incas): this changed our world forever. Jared Diamond has studied how this was possible. Be sure to turn on the captions (CC) to read the English dialogue while you watch this video.

Were the Spanish much smarter than the Indians? Not really! One could say that the Europeans were lucky to be born in the right place at the right time. Their advantage came from geography. You can read a complete transcript of this program here:
http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/show/transcript2.html
The transcript can also be downloaded as a PDF file for easy printing:
http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/pdf/episode2.pdf