Mexico City marks 700 years since its founding by Indigenous people

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico City is marking the 700th anniversary of its founding with a series of public events on Saturday, including artistic performances honoring the city’s Indigenous origins.

Artists in Indigenous clothing reenacted the founding of the Aztec capital in front of the country’s top officials in Mexico City's main square. Later, hundreds of dancers dressed in traditional clothing, feather headdresses, drums, and ankle rattles made of seeds performed sacred dances meant to connect with nature.

The anniversary commemorates the establishment of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica, a group also known as the Aztecs, who settled in the Valley of Mexico in 1325.

As recorded by early Spanish chroniclers, Mexica elders told of a divine sign from their patron god Huitzilopochtli: an eagle on a cactus, signaling where to settle. That place became Tenochtitlan, the center of Aztec civilization and the site of today’s Mexico City.

That symbol was later recorded in the Codex Mendoza, which contained historical accounts of the Aztec empire. It became central to Mexican identity and appears today on the national flag.

“Mexico was not born with the arrival of the Spanish; Mexico was born much earlier with the great civilizations,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum in a speech in which she urged the eradication of the racism that still persists in the country.

Tenochtitlan began as a village on an island in a lake ringed by volcanic peaks. But historians say many other details that have come down in history are based heavily on legend, and that the exact founding date is unknown.

By the time the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, they were awed by a city filled with palaces, bridges, canals and bustling trade, according to Spanish chronicler and conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo.

Historian Miguel Pastrana of the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Historic Investigations Institute, an expert on Tenochtitlan, said the weekend’s festivities are “political and civic" and do not reflect the latest historical research.

The historical record describes the Mexica as a people who migrated from a place called Aztlan, supposedly an island whose exact location remains unknown. They knew how to fish, gather aquatic plants and hunt birds, as well as build dams, and they tried to settle in several places before arriving in the Valley of Mexico.

The main island in the lake was already populated by the Tepaneca people, but they allowed the Mexica to settle there in exchange for tribute payments and other services, Pastrana said.

Little by little, the Mexica’s power grew. They were strong warriors and commercially prosperous, and they were effective at making alliances with other peoples.

Tenochtitlan became a great city at the center of an empire until the Spanish conquered it in 1521.

An artist in Indigenous clothing performs marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A dancer dressed in Indigenous clothing blows on a conch shell marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Dancers in Indigenous clothing perform marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Dancers in Indigenous clothing perform marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Dancers dressed in Indigenous clothing perform marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Dancers dressed in Indigenous clothing, backdropped by an image of Aztec goddess Tlaltecuhtli, gather to mark the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Mexica dancers burn incense marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A dancer in Indigenous clothing performs marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

An artist in Indigenous clothing performs marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A dancer dressed in Indigenous clothing blows on a conch shell marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Dancers in Indigenous clothing perform marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Dancers in Indigenous clothing perform marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Dancers dressed in Indigenous clothing perform marking the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City, in the capital's main square, the Zocalo, Saturday, July 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

BOGUE CHITTO, Miss. (AP) — Powerful storms that included at least three tornadoes tore through several Mississippi counties, damaging around 500 homes, uprooting trees and injuring at least 17 people, authorities said Thursday.

There were no immediate reports of deaths after storms cut across the state's southwest on Wednesday night, said Scott Simmons, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

He said 12 of those hurt were transported from a hard-hit trailer park in the small community of Bogue Chitto, about an hour's drive south of the state capital in rural Lincoln County.

Most of the two dozen homes at Gene’s Mobile Home Supply were flattened into heaps of splintered boards and twisted metal. People picked through the debris Thursday morning under cloudy skies as a chainsaw buzzed in the background.

“I was just watching TikTok on my bed and thought it was thunder. I went to my living room. I went back to my room, and the room’s gone,” resident Max Mahaffey told WAPT-TV.

He said he wasn't injured, but his grandmother hurt her ankle and some of his neighbors suffered cuts and bruises.

One intact trailer lay flipped on its roof near the tree line. Several cars, some with hazard lights blinking, appeared to have been picked up by the storm.

“We know there were at least three tornadoes,” said Daniel Lamb, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office in Jackson.

“The same storm produced at least two tornadoes from Franklin, Lincoln into Lawrence counties, and then there was another one from Lamar possibly into Forest County.”

He said there may have been more. “Those are just the ones that we are able to confirm by radar before even having gone down there.”

“Pray for Mississippi,” Gov. Tate Reeves posted online, saying the state Emergency Management Agency was coordinating response efforts.

Many roads were still blocked in Lincoln County and teams from the agency were assessing the damage.

“We ask that you please refrain from sightseeing as crews are working,” the department posted early Thursday.

The governor said a volunteer rescue group was providing a 50-person shelter pod, a high-powered generator and 10 pallets of supplies to the county, which reported at least 200 damaged homes.

Lamar County to the southeast reported about 275 homes damaged, according to the state emergency management agency. Another 10 to 12 homes were damaged in Lawrence County.

More storms were expected Thursday with the possibility of tornadoes across parts of Alabama, Georgia and Florida, the weather service said. Strong storms also were possible for parts of the Carolinas and Texas.

McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

In this frame grab from video taken by WDAM, damaged trees and a house or structure following a storm that tore through part of Lamar County, Mississippi, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (WDAM via AP)