NEW YORK
Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian-born navigator sailing for France,
discovered New York Bay in 1524. Henry Hudson, an Englishman employed by
the Dutch, reached the bay and sailed up the river now bearing his name
in 1609, the same year that northern New York was explored and claimed
for France by Samuel de Champlain.
In 1624 the first permanent Dutch
settlement was established at Fort Orange (now Albany); one year later
Peter Minuit is said to have purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians
for trinkets worth about $24 and founded the Dutch colony of New
Amsterdam (now New York City), which was surrendered to the English in
1664.
For a short time, New York City was the
U.S. capital and George Washington was inaugurated there as the first
president on April 30, 1789.
New York's extremely rapid commercial
growth may be partly attributed to Governor De Witt Clinton, who pushed
through the construction of the Erie Canal (Buffalo to Albany), which
was opened in 1825. Today, the 559-mile Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway
connects New York City with Buffalo and with Connecticut, Massachusetts,
and Pennsylvania express highways. Two toll-free superhighways, the
Adirondack Northway (linking Albany with the Canadian border) and the
North-South Expressway (crossing central New York from the Pennsylvania
border to the Thousand Islands), have been opened.
Among the major points of interest are
Castle Clinton, Fort Stanwix, and Statue of Liberty National Monuments;
Niagara Falls; U.S. Military Academy at West Point; National Historic
Sites that include homes of Franklin D. Roosevelt at Hyde Park and
Theodore Roosevelt in Oyster Bay and New York City; the Women's Rights
National Historical Park in Seneca Falls; National Memorials, including
Grant's Tomb and Federal Hall in New York City; Fort Ticonderoga; the
Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown; and the United Nations,
skyscrapers, museums, theaters, and parks in New York City.
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