El Colegio Nacional (Mexico)

La Enseñanza Church (The Teaching Church) (1772-1778) is located on 104 Donceles Street in the historic center of Mexico City. The Mexican Churrigueresque style of this church, especially that of its altarpieces, is upheld as the pinnacle of the Baroque period in Mexico, as this style soon gave way to the Neoclassic shortly after this church was built. The church’s official name is Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Pilar (Church of Our Lady of the Pillar). The former convent was called El Convento de la Enseñanza La Antigua (The Old Convent of the Teaching), from which is derived the church’s popular name. After the Reform War, the convent was disbanded. The complex has had various uses, but the church has been returned to its sacred function.

The Secretariat of Public Education Main Headquarters building (former Convent of la Encarnación) is on the northeast corner of San Ildefonso and República de Argentina streets in the historic center of Mexico City, and used to be part of the largest and most sumptuous convents in New Spain. It was secularized in the 19th century and then taken over by the then-new Secretariat of Public Education after the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. The new agency did extensive remodeling work on the building, including covering nearly all the walls of the two inner courtyards with murals. These murals include Diego Rivera’s first large-scale mural project, which he completed in 1928.

The Caricature Museum (Museo de la Caricatura in Spanish) is located in an 18th-century Baroque building in the historic center of Mexico City. It was opened in 1987 to preserve and promote the history of Mexican cartooning, done for both political and entertainment purposes. The historic building it occupies was originally the home of Cristo College, a royal college established in 1612.

The Palace of the Marquis del Apartado is a historic residence located in Mexico City, just to the northeast of the city's Zocalo (main plaza) in the Historic center of Mexico City. It was built between 1795 and 1805 over one of the pyramids of the Aztec sacred precinct in Tenochtitlan. The residence was initially built for the main minter of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the third floor was prepared to become the residence of Spanish king Ferdinand VII. However, the king never came to colonial Mexico. Today, the palace houses the main headquarters of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH).

The Old Customs Building is located on the east side of Santo Domingo Plaza between Republica de Venezuela and Luis Gonzalez Obregon Streets just to the north of the main plaza of Mexico City. The land here originally belonged to several nobles, including the Marquis of Villamayor. The Royal Customs office was in charge of the regulation of imported merchandise into New Spain and taxing the same, becoming the largest source of revenue for the government. The office originally was on 5 de febrero Street but was moved into the Villamayor house in 1676 because of its location next to Santo Domingo Plaza. Eventually, the government bought the house and rebuilt it in 1730, which is the building that survives today. Eventually, the Customs office in Mexico City closed and it was taken over by the Secretariat of Public Education in the early part of the 20th century. It remains as offices of this government agency.

The Centro Cultural de España (Cultural Center of Spain in Mexico) is located at 18 Guatemala Street in the historic center of Mexico City. In the late 1990s, this old mansion just behind the Cathedral was in ruins when the Mexico City government ceded it to the Spanish government. When restoration work was finished, the new Centro Cultural de España was inaugurated by the king of Spain with the President of Mexico in 2002.The land in this area used to belong to Hernán Cortés, who ceded it to one of his fellow conquistadors. Over the years, it was modified as it passed it was used as law offices, workshops and various types of stores. In 1985, it was severely damaged by the earthquake and was abandoned until the Spanish government acquired it in 1997. The site was chosen due to a commitment by the Spanish government to save an historical monument in this city. The Spanish undertook a careful restoration of the building.In 2012 the center was expanded to an include lot facing Donceles street and on this space a completely new 4000 sq m wing including a rooftop terrace. Javier Sánchez was the architect.This center promotes art exposition of various Mexican and Spanish artists, and include works by younger, more experimental artists as well as established ones. It also contains a small café upstairs and a gift shop downstairs.

Colegio de San Ildefonso, currently is a museum and cultural center in Mexico City, considered to be the birthplace of the Mexican muralism movement. San Ildefonso began as a prestigious Jesuit boarding school, and after the Reform War it gained educational prestige again as National Preparatory School. This school and the building closed completely in 1978, then reopened as a museum and cultural center in 1992. The museum has permanent and temporary art and archeological exhibitions in addition to the many murals painted on its walls by José Clemente Orozco, Fernando Leal, Diego Rivera and others. The complex is located between San Ildefonso Street and Justo Sierra Street in the historic center of Mexico City.The college was founded 1588 and it is composed of six sections, that are five colonial baroque: the Colegio Grande, Colegio Chico, the chapel, El Generalito and the courtyard of los Pasantes, all completed in 1749; and one modern neo-baroque: the Amphitheater Bolívar completed in 1911.

The Tlaxcala House is located at 40 San Ildefonso Street in the historic center of Mexico City. It is an example of a typical middle class home of the 18th century, meant that its style is somewhere between the mansions of the wealthy and the houses of the commoners of the time.The outer facade has two levels, with most of the surface covered in tezontle, a blood-red volcanic stone, with chiluca, a grayish white stone, to frame windows and doors. In the lower part of the facade, the shutters covering the windows reach to the cornice. The main doorway leads to an entrance hall which leads to the inner patio. However, only three of the four sides have corridors and rooms. The fourth side is simple a wall. The north and south corridors have arches, and the north corridor has a ceiling with heavy beams. The stairway to the upper floor is illuminated by an octagonal skylight. Writer Jose Marti lived in this house near the end of the 19th century, and a plaque at the building’s entrance attests to this. The house now is the home of the Tlaxcala State delegation to the federal government in Mexico City.

The Massacre in the Great Temple, also called the Alvarado Massacre, was an event on May 22, 1520, in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan during the Spanish conquest of Mexico, in which the celebration of the Feast of Toxcatl ended in a massacre of Aztec elites. While Hernán Cortés was in Tenochtitlan, he heard about other Spaniards arriving on the coast – Pánfilo de Narváez had come from Cuba with orders to arrest him – and Cortés was forced to leave the city to fight them. During his absence, Moctezuma asked deputy governor Pedro de Alvarado for permission to celebrate Toxcatl (an Aztec festivity in honor of Tezcatlipoca, one of their main gods, which, as popular in Aztec culture, included human sacrifice, in this case of a young man). But after the festivities had started, Alvarado interrupted the celebration, killing all the warriors and noblemen who were celebrating inside the Great Temple. The few who managed to escape the massacre by climbing over the walls informed the community of the Spaniards' atrocity.The Spanish version of the incident claims the conquistadors intervened to prevent a ritual of human sacrifice in the Templo Mayor; the Aztec version says the Spaniards were enticed into action by the gold the Aztecs were wearing, prompting an Aztec rebellion against the orders of Moctezuma. While differing so on Alvarado's specific motive, both accounts are in basic agreement that the celebrants were unarmed and that the massacre was without warning and unprovoked. The Aztecs were already antagonistic towards the Spaniards for being inside their city and for holding Moctezuma under house arrest. When Cortés and his men, including those who had come under Narváez, returned, the Aztecs began full scale hostilities against the Spaniards. The Spaniards had no choice but to retreat from the city, which they did on what is called the Sad Night (La Noche Triste), losing most of their men, who were either killed in the battle or were captured and sacrificed.

The Palace of the Inquisition stands on the corner of República de Brasil and República de Venezuela streets in Mexico City, Mexico. As neither side of the building faces Santo Domingo Plaza, the entrance is placed at a canted corner to face the plaza. Its long association with the Inquisition, which ended during the Mexican War of Independence, made it difficult to convert to other purposes. However, it eventually became the School of Medicine for the reconstructed National University (now the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)). When UNAM moved to the Ciudad Universitaria in the 1950s, it retained ownership of this building, eventually converting the structure in what is today the Museum of Mexican Medicine.

The Fall of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, was a decisive event in the Spanish conquest of the empire. It occurred in 1521 following extensive manipulation of local factions and exploitation of pre-existing political divisions by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. He was aided by indigenous allies, and his interpreter and companion La Malinche. Although numerous battles were fought between the Aztec Empire and the Spanish-led coalition, which was composed mainly of Tlaxcaltec men, it was the siege of Tenochtitlan that directly led to the downfall of the Aztec civilization and marked the end of the first phase of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The Aztec population was devastated at the time by high mortality due to a smallpox epidemic, which killed much of its leadership. Because smallpox had been endemic in Asia and Europe for centuries, the Spanish had developed an acquired immunity and were affected relatively little in the epidemic. The conquest of Mexico was a critical stage in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. With this conquest, Spain gained substantial access to the Pacific Ocean. Through that, the Spanish Empire could finally achieve its original oceanic goal of reaching the Asian markets.

The Fountain to Bartolomé de las Casas (Spanish: Fuente de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas) is installed since 1924 outside the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, in Mexico. The statue of de las Casas was designed by José Fernández Urbina.