The once-mighty Maya civilization—with populations LARGER than today's Yucatan—faced apocalyptic collapse in the 10th century. As unprecedented drought persisted, desperate nobles demanded increasingly extreme blood sacrifices while peasants abandoned a system clearly abandoned by the gods. The priests, whose calendar had predicted this cycle of rise and fall, watched helplessly as city-states waged total wars of annihilation. A haunting glimpse into what civilizational collapse truly looks like. SPONSORS: NetSuite:  More than 41,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, the #1 cloud financial system bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, into ONE proven platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine learning: https://netsuite.com/102 Shopify: Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, handling 10% of U.S. e-commerce. With hundreds of templates, AI tools for product descriptions, and seamless marketing campaign creation, it's like having a design studio and marketing team in one. Start your $1/month trial today at https://shopify.com/cognitive -- LINKS: Link to my second podcast on world history and interviews:    / @history102-qg5oj   Link to my Twitter-https://twitter.com/whatifalthist?ref... Link to my Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/rudyardwlyn... -- Bibliography: Fire and Blood by Fehrenbach Epic Mexico by Rugely Rise of the West by McNeil 1491 by Mann Fifth Sun by Camilla Townsend A History of Latin America by Hubert Herring Why Nations Fail by Robinson and Acemoglu Empires of the Atlantic World by Elliot The Story of the Americas by Leland Dewitt Baldwin Atrocities by Matthew White The Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas by Hagen Nine Nations of North America by Garreau Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari The Decline of the West by Spengler Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant The Soul of India by Amaury de riencourt Masks of the Gods volume 1 and 2 by Joseph Camble The Year 1000 by Valerie Hansen War Before Civilization by Lawrence Keeley The Day Before Yesterday Tamim Ansary Spiral Dynamics by Beck Sex and Culture by JD Unwin The Explanation of Ideology by Emmanuel Todd The 3D Gospel by Georges Don't Know Much about Mythology by Ken Davis