New York City has been called the City that never sleeps, the Big Apple, and the City so nice they named it twice.

It's the World Center for Finance, the location of the United Nations, and a center for fashion and entertainment.

But why did this city become so important and why did such an important city

get founded where it was? Was it chance? Was it history or was it geography? Learn

more about New York City as much as is possible on a daily podcast, one this episode is going to focus on the very big picture about how New York came to be what it is today.

This means I obviously won't be going through every event in its history or all the people that helped shaped it.

What I can do is give a thousand foot overview of the city, how it came to be, and how it came to be

so important.

The story of New York starts with the indigenous people who live there before the Europeans arrived, the Lenape. The around the Hudson River Valley. The Lenape were a woodland people, any area that is New York City, was mostly woodland.

The word Manhattan comes from the Lenape word meaning Manahatan, which roughly translates

to the place where we get bows.

The first year, Pee and to visit the area was the Italian Explorer Giovanni de Verrizzano in 1524.

He sailed into New York Harbor and today the entrance of the harbor is known as the

Verrazano Narrows. He sailed into the harbor enough to see the Hudson River and

all he really reported back was that he found a large river. It wasn't until

over 80 years later in 1609 when the English explorer Henry Hudson sailed back into the harbor and up the river which was named after him.

He eventually sailed all the way up to Albany in Upper New York.

Here I need to explain the geography of New York

and what made it so special and appealing for Europeans who are arriving in North America.

Unlike the west coast of North America,

the East Coast has plenty of good harbours.

Halifax, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Charleston all have really good harbours

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