This Day in History July 1: The Bloodiest Day of the Somme & Battle of Gettysburg
Thick gray smoke hung over the dry mud of Tenochtitlan on the night of July 1, 1520, as Hernán Cortés ordered his Spanish conquistadors to slip out of the Aztec capital under the cover of a midnight rainstorm. Discovered by Aztec scouts, the retreating soldiers were quickly swarmed by thousands of warriors in canoes, turning…