On September 14th, 1847, General Winifield Scott's Army marched into Mexico City, signaling the end of the Mexican-American War.

In this week's lectures and history podcast, University of Texas professor Aaron O'Connell chronicles the war's causes, the divisions it inflamed within the United States, and its lasting consequences for both nations.

Listen as he explores how the war reshaped American politics, military strategy, and the debate over slavery in the mid-19th century.

More in a moment.

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everybody this is american military history here at the university of texas and today we're going to be

talking about the u.s mexican war uh as we do in Texas, and today we're going to be talking about the U.S.-Mexican War. As we do in most of our classes, we're going to have some themes

that we hit each time, and we're going to proceed in a linear fashion of discussing causes,

then conduct, then consequences. And along the way, I'm going to try to hit a few points home

to drive some themes home that we've been using in the class this far.

So obviously the starting point is what caused this war?

And I'm going to use the same metaphor we've been using all semester of a spark and powder, right?

Sparks happen when single events cause conflict.

But they only catch fire into a massive war when there's gunpowder lying around.

And that gunpowder, it can be military gunpowder, it can be geostrategic gunpowder.

Sometimes it's cultural gunpowder or economic gunpowder. And so I'd like to do all of that in the causes section.

I want to talk about the events that start

the war, of which there are a few events that could arguably be the spark of the Mexican war.

...