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Cortes attacked Tenochtitlan from three directions at once with 13 new ships. The Aztecs had more than 200,000 canoes. It took Cortes three months to reach the sacred center of Tenochtitlan. The fighting was so fierce that the lake water turned red with blood. Aztec soldiers sacrificed Spanish soldiers and rolled their heads along the causeways. The Spanish could not move "without treading on the bodies and heads of dead Indians."
In the final all-out attack on the center of the city, 15,000 Aztecs died that day alone. Emperor Cuauhtemoc and his last few supporters tried to escape in a canoe, but were captured by the Spaniards. The siege of Tenochtitlan was over. In the Aztec calendar, this was the first day of the Great Feast of the Dead, a month of traditional lamentation and remembrance.
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