I am reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. It is a fascinating book of how history unfolded “very differently for peoples from different parts of the globe” going back 13,000 years. I’m just eighty-pages in but the account of the capture of Inca emperor Atahuallpa and his subsequent beheading by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro is mind-boggling.
The encounter between Atahuallpa and Pizarro occurred on November 16, 1532. Atahuallpa’s army of 80,000 soldiers were defeated by Pizarro’s army of 168 soldiers! The fact that 168 soldiers were able to defeat 80,000 is rife with insight about human behavior and patterns and the notion of access (privilege?) you and I should heed in the 21st century. (Read more…)
