Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Inca Empire began in the year 1438 and ended in 1533 when the Spanish arrived to destroy it. This century-long duration saw the transformation of a small city-state into the largest empire the Americas had ever known.
Pachacuti Cusi Yupanqui founded the Inca Empire in the year 1438 by transforming a small city-state into a vast empire. His name meant the turn of the world and he orchestrated a military and administrative revolution that lasted a century.
The capital of the Inca Empire was the city of Cusco, which served as the navel of the universe where the four regions of Tawantinsuyu met. This city was established at the spot where a golden staff sank into the earth according to legend.
The Inca Empire managed communication through a system of knotted strings called quipu and a network of over 25,000 miles of roads. Chasqui runners carried messages across the empire in a matter of days, a feat that would take weeks for a European messenger.
The Inca Empire developed a vertical archipelago of agricultural zones to grow crops like potatoes, maize, and quinoa at different altitudes. They also domesticated the llama and alpaca, the only large domesticated animals in the Americas, to support their population.