How did Spanish conquistadores manage to conquer the Aztec and Inca empires?

1. How did Spanish conquistadores manage to conquer the Aztec and Inca empires? (Provide examples for both cases.)

2. Post-independence Latin America remained divided societies by class, race, gender, and ethnicity, yet power and privilege remained among the European-descendent creole elites. Politics was divided between liberals and conservatives. Explain the differences between liberalism and conservatism in nineteenth-century Latin America? How did these two opposing views try to appeal to the traditionally excluded people (non-whites, women, indigenous people, working-class and rural poor)?

3. What factors led to the October Revolution in Guatemala in the 1940s and the rise of a Socialist President in Chile in the 1970s? How did the United States respond in both cases?

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