1524: Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano (sic), on an expedition sponsored by the French crown, sails into New York Harbor. He records his discovery but never sets foot on land.
1600
1609: Englishman Henry Hudson, backed by the Dutch East India Company, arrives in New York in his ship, the Half Moon, and explores the river that now bears his name.
1626: Dutch colonial Governor Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan from its Algonquin speaking indigenous residents for "$24 in beads and trinkets."
1656: Governor Peter Stuyvesant declares beaver pelts a legal form of currency, valued at eight Dutch florins apiece.
1664: The Dutch cede control of New Amsterdam to the British, who promptly rename it New York.
1693: Ninety two cannon are installed at the southern tip of Manhattan to protect the British colony and the site becomes known as the Battery.
1700
1731: New York's first fire department is established, with engines imported from London.
1733: The Bowling Green is set aside as a public park, "with walks therein for the beauty and ornament... as well as for sports and delight of the inhabitants of the citie."
1776: The Revolutionary War begins. British Admiral William Howe assembles a fleet of 100 warships in New York harbor.
1783: British troops leave New
York City.
1789: Congress meets in New York and ratifies the U.S. Constitution. George Washington is inaugurated as the nation's first President.
1792: A Stock Exchange is established under a Wall Street tree.
1800
1808: Castle Clinton is built on a small island just off the Battery. Later landfill operations joined the island to the rest of Manhattan.
1823: Castle Clinton becomes the property of the City, is renamed Castle Garden, and becomes a popular public entertainment venue.
1824: The Marquis de La Fayette, hero of the Revolutionary War, is showered with flowers by grateful New Yorkers as he arrives in the city.
1842: Inventor Samuel F.B. Morse tests his new "telegraph" on a line between Castle Clinton and Governor's Island.
1870: New York City's Department of Public Works builds public "floating baths" at the Battery, open free of charge between June and October.
1892: U.S. Immigration Station opens on Ellis Island. before this, arriving immigrants were processed at Castle Clinton in the Battery.
1886: The Statue of Liberty is inaugurated in New York Harbor on Bedloe's Island (now Liberty island).
1896: Castle Clinton is converted into the New York Aquarium. Admission was free. According to one report, daily attendance averaged 5,000 visitors and "One popular exhibit was a small and affectionate
Galapagos penguin, which used to follow its keeper upstairs, one jump to each step."
1900
1909: Wilbur Wright flies his experimental triplane over New York Harbor.
1927: The Holland Tunnel opens, linking New York to New Jersey.
1931: The Empire State Building opens.
1945: World War II ends.
1954: Ellis Island closes.
1961: Plans for Battery Park City development first posted.
1964: The Verrazano(sic) Narrows Bridge is completed, spanning the mouth of New York Harbor. At the time, it is the longest suspension bridge in the world.
1968: Battery Park City Authority is created by the NY State legislature.
1973: The World Trade Center opens.
1988: First phase of construction for Battery Park City is completed. Nearly 35,000 people now work there.
1990: Ellis Island re-opens as museum of American immigration.
1996: Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park opens, completing the last major link in the Battery Park City "greenbelt" stretching north from the Battery to Nelson Rockefeller Park.
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