Culiacán is the state capital of Sinaloa in Mexico, where the Sinaloa cartel is based and a fight between the government and the cartel broke out which ended with the government handing over the arrested son of “El Chapo”. The Sinaloa cartel is the most powerful cartel in the western hemisphere.
Even though it was founded by Spanish conquerors, there was a presence of indigenous groups prior to the conquest, and was said to be the birthplace of the Aztec god of war and the Sun, their patron god.
Lake Zumpango is a large lake to the north of Mexico City in the State of Mexico, which was a part of the huge inland sea that formed much of the Valley of Mexico, before the Spanish took over and drained almost all of it.
Salamanca is a small city in the State of Guanajuato in Mexico, named after a Spanish city. It’s the birthplace of the “insurgents’ heroine” during the Mexican war of independence, Tomasa Esteves. After the death of her husband, who was in Miguel Hidalgo’s army, she managed to get many royalists to defect to the independence movement, allegedly by using her beauty. She was eventually captured and hanged in the city.
Tetela de Ocampo is a small town in the state of Puebla in Mexico known for its military history. It was founded in the 1200s by Native Americans. In the 1800s, liberals and conservatives fought over control of the country, and when the liberal administration attempted to remove privileges of the church, a civil war ensued. Mexico was broke after the war and President Juárez suspended debt payments which led to the occupation of Veracruz by Britain, Spain, and France. Napoleon III seized the opportunity and attempted to install the Archduke of Austria as the second Emperor of Mexico with the help of the conservatives, but the French Empire was defeated in Puebla City on the fifth of May, now known as “Cinco de Mayo”. During that battle, many people from Tetela joined barefoot with just knives and were central to the Mexican success. Later on, the French and Austrians came to the city which only had 400 soldiers, and occupied it. The people fled but continued with their guerrilla warfare until the French was eventually defeated. Altogether, the city’s active participation in 3 major battles, including the siege against it, allowed it to be granted the title “three times heroic”.
During the Mexican Revolution, the candidate who lost the gubernatorial election declared himself the winner and designated the city as the capital of the state. A few years later, when President Carranza, architect of the current constitution, fled the capital, he stayed here briefly before being assassinated nearby.
jagged little earth 