Montezuma II Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
46 free Montezuma II trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Montezuma II trivia quiz covers the ninth tlatoani of the Aztecs, from his coronation around 1502 to his death in Spanish custody in 1520. The easy questions ask which empire he ruled, which conquistador he met on the causeway into his capital, what his capital was called, which drink he took from a golden goblet and what 'Montezuma's revenge' really means. From there it moves into his reign: the famine, the palace zoo, the aqueduct, the elitist reforms and the empire's greatest extent. The hard end is for people who read Bernal Díaz: what his name means in Nahuatl, the wife who made him king consort of another city, the windowless black room where he meditated, the omens his contemporaries recorded, the two very different accounts of how he died, the brother who ruled 80 days, the daughter widowed five times, the feather headdress Mexico wants back from Vienna, the operas that bear his name and the US Marines' Hymn line about his halls. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on Moctezuma II, Hernán Cortés, Tenochtitlan, La Noche Triste, the Massacre in the Great Temple, Cuitláhuac, Cuauhtémoc, La Malinche, Isabel Moctezuma and Montezuma's headdress before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Aztecs, Mexico and Spanish conquistadors quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Legend says Montezuma's capital was founded where an eagle perched on which plant?
A cactus
A cactus: in the founding legend the wandering Mexica were told to settle where they saw an eagle on a prickly pear, and the scene now sits at the centre of Mexico's flag.
Q 02What did Cortés do to Montezuma within days of being welcomed into his capital?
Took him hostage
Took him hostage: six days after arriving as a guest, Cortés seized Montezuma in his own city, reckoning the Mexica would not attack while their ruler was in Spanish hands.
Q 03What was the name of the Aztec capital where Montezuma ruled?
Tenochtitlan
Tenochtitlan stood on an island in a lake, laced with canals; after the siege of 1521 the Spaniards tore down what was left and built Mexico City on its ruins.
Q 04A Spanish soldier described Montezuma being served which frothy drink in golden cups at dinner?
Chocolate
Chocolate: the soldier-chronicler watched it brought to Montezuma in golden cups and counted some fifty frothing jars carried in, with the leftovers handed out to his jesters and dancers.
Q 05'Montezuma's revenge' is a colloquial name for what?
Traveller's diarrhoea
Traveller's diarrhoea picked up in Mexico earned the nickname Montezuma's revenge, as if the emperor were punishing visiting foreigners; 'Delhi belly' is the Indian equivalent.
Q 06The opening line of the US Marines' Hymn, 'From the Halls of Montezuma', refers to which 1847 engagement?
The Battle of Chapultepec
The Battle of Chapultepec saw Marines help storm the hilltop castle guarding Mexico City in September 1847, though its halls were begun for a Spanish viceroy more than 250 years after Montezuma died.
Q 07Montezuma's name in the Aztec language combines a noun meaning 'lord' with a verb meaning what?
To frown in anger
To frown in anger: joined to the word for lord it gives 'he frowns like a lord', a name that Spanish pens then bent into Motecusuma, Moctezuma and Montezuma.
Q 08What does Xocoyotzin, the name that told Montezuma II apart from Montezuma I, mean?
Honoured young one
Honoured young one: chronicles used it to tell him from his great-grandfather, 'Old Moctezuma'; the Aztecs had no regnal numbers, so the 'II' was added later by historians.
Q 09Montezuma II was the great-grandson of Moctezuma I and the son of which emperor?
Axayácatl
Axayácatl was his father, yet the son did not follow him directly: Axayácatl's brothers Tízoc and Ahuitzotl each ruled in turn before the electors chose Montezuma.
Q 10Before his election, Montezuma served as a priest in the temple of which Mexica war god?
Huitzilopochtli
Huitzilopochtli, god of war and of the sun: Montezuma was a priest of his temple as well as a proven general, and both careers counted with the electors who chose him.
Q 11Which 52-year rite fell early in Montezuma's reign?
New Fire
The New Fire ceremony: every hearth was left to go out, then priests kindled a fresh flame on a victim's breast, and runners carried it out to relight the temples and homes.
Q 12Which natural disaster struck central Mexico in 1505, early in Montezuma's reign?
A drought and famine
A drought and famine: the rains failed, the harvests collapsed across central Mexico, and many people left the capital for the Gulf coast, where there was still food to be had.
Q 13Montezuma widened the gap between nobles and commoners by banning commoners from doing what?
Serving in the royal palaces
Q 21Some Aztec sources say Montezuma feared the Spaniards because he believed Cortés might be which returning god?
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, was said to have sailed east and promised to return; scholars such as Anthony Pagden argue the story was elaborated after the conquest.
Q 22According to Cortés's own letters, Montezuma volunteered to cede his entire realm to which monarch?
Charles V of Spain
Charles V of Spain was told so in Cortés's Second Letter of 1520, but Montezuma's words of welcome may have been courtly Nahua politeness, which could say one thing and mean the reverse.
Q 23Montezuma's nobles were cut down in the 1520 Massacre in the Great Temple while doing what?
He barred commoners from serving in the royal palaces, reversing his predecessors' habit of promoting on merit, replaced much of the court with nobles and made them live in the capital.
Q 14Montezuma's palace included the Totocalli, a famous facility of what kind?
A zoo
A zoo: beyond the birds that gave the House of Birds its name, it held jaguars, pumas and rattlesnakes, and a Spanish soldier wrote that their roaring and hissing made the place sound like hell.
Q 15What was the windowless, all-black room in Montezuma's palace used for?
Meditation
The Casa Denegrida was Montezuma's room for meditation, where he reflected on the omens his seers reported; its remains were found in 2008 under central Mexico City.
Q 16Which modern Mexico City building stands on the site of Montezuma's palace?
The National Palace
The National Palace on the Zócalo stands where Montezuma's 'New Houses' stood; Cortés rebuilt the site as his own residence, and it later became the viceroys' palace.
Q 17Montezuma's warriors fought with the macuahuitl, a wooden club edged with razor-sharp blades of which material?
Obsidian
Obsidian: flaked blades of it were set along the wooden edge, and Spanish eyewitnesses claimed that a single blow from one could kill a horse.
Q 18Xoconosco, the far southern province of Montezuma's empire, lies on the Pacific coast of which modern Mexican state?
Chiapas
Chiapas: the strip stayed contested long after the Aztecs, joining Mexico only in 1842, and a treaty with Guatemala did not settle the border there until 1882.
Q 19Montezuma received the first reports of Europeans landing on his coast in 1518, from the expedition of whom?
Juan de Grijalva
Juan de Grijalva's ships were hailed by coastal people waving white flags, who traded gold with his men; word of that gold reached Cuba, and Cortés was sent out the next year.
Q 20What did Montezuma and Cortés exchange as gifts when they first met on the causeway in November 1519?
Necklaces
Necklaces: Cortés hung glass beads scented with musk on Montezuma and received gold ones in return, and the emperor then lodged the Spaniards in his late father's palace.
Dancing at a festival
Dancing at a festival: the unarmed nobles were celebrating the spring feast of Toxcatl when the Spanish garrison attacked them, and the killing brought the whole city down on the Spaniards.
Q 24Which captain did Cortés leave in charge of the capital when he marched to confront Narváez?
Pedro de Alvarado
Pedro de Alvarado, whom the Mexica called Tonatiuh ('the Sun'), was left in charge; saying he feared a rising, he struck first, and the bloodshed left his men besieged in their quarters until Cortés hurried back.
Q 25How do Spanish accounts say Montezuma was fatally injured while addressing his people from a rooftop?
Stones thrown by the crowd
Stones thrown by the crowd struck him as he appealed for calm, the Spanish chroniclers wrote, and he died within days; the Aztecs believed instead that the Spaniards had murdered him.
Q 26After the Aztecs renounced Montezuma, which brother of his was named tlatoani in his place?
Cuitláhuac
Cuitláhuac, lord of Iztapalapa and Montezuma's brother, led the rising that mauled the Spaniards as they fled the city on 30 June 1520, then tried to rally other peoples against them.
Q 27Who was the last Aztec emperor, defending Montezuma's capital through the final siege of 1521?
Cuauhtémoc
Cuauhtémoc, Montezuma's son-in-law, held out through the siege; the Spaniards later tortured him to find hidden gold, and Cortés had him hanged on a march to Honduras.
Q 28Mexico City's plaza marking La Noche Triste, the Spaniards' 1520 flight, was renamed in 2021 for which night?
Victorious Night
Victorious Night (Noche Victoriosa): the city renamed the plaza and its old tree, where Cortés is said to have wept over his losses, to recast the Spaniards' rout as a Mexica triumph.
Q 29The feather headdress attributed to Montezuma, which Mexico has long asked to have back, is kept in which European city?
Vienna
Vienna's Weltmuseum holds the headdress, which surfaced in a Habsburg castle collection; despite its name, there is no firm evidence that Montezuma ever owned or wore it.
Q 30What did Montezuma do after dinner with the painted, gilded tubes brought to his table?
Smoked tobacco
Smoked tobacco: a soldier at court watched one of the tubes lit once the tables were cleared; Montezuma drew in the smoke for a short while and then fell asleep.