History

The first explorer who came by New York was Giovanni da Verazzano from Italy (1524). He only sailed near towards the area we now know as the New York Harbor and then left again and set sail towards the ocean again. It took half a century before a new explorer came by New York.
In 1609 the explorer Henry Hudson, an englishman sailing for the Dutch VOC, discovered New York yet again. But he continued sailing up the river until he reached a small town, which we now know as Albany (the capital of the State of New York). Thanks to this voyage, the Hudson River got it's name.

Almost a decade later, in 1621, the first ships of the Dutch West Indian Compagny arrived in New York. Their job was to set up a trading post in New-Amsterdam (Manhatten). Peter Minuit bought Manhatten from the former inhabitants (the Indians) for 60 Guilders in 1628.
The Dutch trading post became an important harbor in the area, therefor the Dutch built a defencewall around the trading post in 1653. The street next to the wall was named wallstreet, which we is one of the most important streets in the world nowadays.

England took over the control of New-Amsterdam in 1664. But England only had control for a short period of time. The Dutch regained control in 1673. But also the Dutch only had the control for a very short period of time. One year later, in 1674 the Dutch swapped New-Amsterdam for Surinam with England.

After year's of battle with the native inhabitants, England left New-Amsterdam in 1783. George Washington took the control from England. Because the New York, previously New-Amsterdam, was one of the last cities of the battle of indepence, an because it was the largest city of the United States of America, New York became the capital of the United States of America.
In 1789 George Washington was the first official President of America. One year later, it was decided to make Philadelphia the capital instead of New York.
In the following year's, New York was a very popular city, in a short period of time the population of New York grew to almost 60.000 people.
Because so many immigrants came to New York, new residential area's needed to be made. Brooklyn was one the very first 'new' residential area's. For that reason the Brooklyn Bridge was built in 1883, to connect the two parts of New York,
New York had to deal with so many immigrants, that a special Immigration Centre was built on Ellis Island in 1892. In the following 50 year's, Ellis Island handled more than 17 million immigrants.
In 1898, the different area's of New York, became one and were named Greater New York. With the change of politics, the city grew to a population of 3,3 million persons.
Because of the many immigrants, New York was soon divided in smaller area's like China Town, Little Italy, etc.

During the firts part of the 20th century, New York was on of the world leading cities in industry, commerce, trade and communication.
But this would come to a complete stop during the economical crisis in 1929. It would cost New York many year's to come back as the worlds leading and one of the best performing cities in the world. When it finally managed so, the Second World War started in Europe. After the Second World War, New York came into a rapid decline. During those year's New York became known as a very criminal and violant city.
The only sollution for this problem that worked was led by Rudy Giuliani during the 1990's. He transferred New York in a succesfull city and managed to bring the crimelevel down again. A few year's later, the area around Broadway (Times Square) was completely renovated, and became a major tourist attraction.

The last known historical developments in New York must have been the terrorist attacks of 9/11 2001. Several planes were hijacked. Two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Downtown Manhatten. One other plane hit the Pentagon and one other crashed near Pittsburgh.
With the crash and the collapse of the Twin Towers, almost 3000 New Yorkers died instantly. The area known as the former site of the Twin Towers is nowaday's known as Ground Zero.