While you are walking to the next point of our excursion, we will take the time to discuss the history of the city and of Manhattan.The first historical mention of New York, or more precisely the location in which the city is built, dates from 1524. It was then that the Italian sea-farer Giovanni Di Verrazzano persuaded King Francis I to equip a ship to explore distant lands. The voyage of his ship, La Dauphine, lasted approximately 4 months when he dropped anchor in a wide bay. Judging by his description this was the bay of current day New York.Eighty years later a new explorer- the English seafarer Henry Hudson not only described the bay and the local river but performed necessary samples and measurements by the newest methods available at the time. In his honor that river is called the Hudson River. In 1624 the first settlers arrived. These were Flemish Walloons involved in the fur trade. But the local Indians tormented them greatly. A large defensive wall did not help.  n 1625 construction of Fort Amsterdam began, which was subsequently renamed New Amsterdam. The diorama and model of this fortress you may have seen already in the museum of New York. The date of the creation of the fort is considered to be the birth date of the city of New York. A year later the Dutchman Peter Minuit acquired the island of Manhattan from local Indians for trinkets amounting in value to about 60 guilders. In 1647 Peter Stuyvesant took over the post of Director General of the colony. 17 years later the rule of the Dutch came to an end when in the New Amsterdam bay two English frigates appeared with 50 cannons on board. The colony surrendered without a single shot and New Amsterdam was renamed New York in honor of the brother of the King - the Duke of York.In the course of the next three years the English created their own administrative system. The city continued to develop over the course of the ensuing 200 years with interruptions connected with military operations - the war of independence and the Civil War. The peak development of the city occurred after the civil War. In the ensuing 20 years, the city built its first railroad trestle, numerous multistoried houses appeared, the Metropolitan Opera and the Museum of Natural History were built, the Central Railroad station and the first electrical power station were opened.In 1898 Greater New York was created by the uniting of the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island.Photo Manhattan 2015 by Rodrigo Paredes is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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