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In the Sixteenth Century, the island was part of a larger area known as Lenapehoking that was inhabited by the Lenape, an Algonquin people also called the "Delaware". The band that occupied the southern part of the island was called the Raritans. To the Lenape, the island was called "Aquehonga Manacknong" and "Eghquaons" (Jackson, 1995).

As in much of North America, human habitation appeared in the island fairly rapidly after the retreat of the ice sheet. Archaeologists have recovered tool evidence of Clovis culture activity dating from approximately 14,000 years ago. The island was probably abandoned later, possibly because of the extinction of large mammals on the island. Evidence of the first permanent Native American settlements and agriculture date from about 5,000 years ago (Jackson, 1995).

Upstate New York (as well as parts of present Ontario, Quebec, Pennsylvania, and Ohio) was occupied by the Five Nations (after 1720 becoming Six Nations, when joined by Tuscarora) of the Iroquois Confederacy for at least a half millenium before the Europeans came.

Many of the bands of Lenape would later gave their names for place names throughout the city, including the Raritans on Staten Island and the Canarsies in Brooklyn. Manhattan is a word in the Munsee language meaning 'the island.' In addition to water travel, the Lenape moved through the region on an extensive system of trails, many of which would later become major roads and thoroughfares of the city.

Not all of the land within the park is owned by the state, but new sections are purchased or donated frequently. The park contains the highest peaks (High Peaks) in New York State, including Mount Marcy the highest elevation in the state. About one-half of the park's six million acres (24,000 km²) are in the public domain.

Raw, unregulated capitalism created large middle, upper-middle and upper classes, but its need for manpower encouraged immigration into the city on an unprecedented scale, with mixed results. The famed melting pot was brought into being, from which multitudes have since arisen in the successful pursuit of "the American Dream". But countless others failed to rise, or entire generations were forced to plough themselves under for their children or grandchildren to rise.

New York County and the Borough of Manhattan are coextensive. As a part of New York City, New York County contains no other political subdivisions. It occupies the whole of Manhattan Island, surrounded by the East River, the Harlem River, and the Hudson River. It also includes some smaller islands, including Roosevelt Island (formerly Welfare Island, and even earlier Blackwell's Island), U Thant Island (officially known as Belmont Island), and a small portion of the North American mainland (Marble Hill) contiguous with The Bronx.

In 1857 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman physician, founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.

An electrical blackout rolled through the Northeastern United States and Southern Canada on August 14, 2003 at 4:11 PM, leaving many areas, including NYC, without electricity for over a day. There was no major looting or other crime, unlike in the blackout of 1977.

It was not until 1624, however, that the Dutch returned under the auspices of the newly formed Dutch West India Company to establish their first permanent settlement of Fort Amsterdam, a crude fortification that stood on the location of the present Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House on Bowling Green.

When his term "Adirondack Park" led to some derision and fears from longtime residents of the area that they might be bought out and evicted, proponents of the idea began to use "Adirondack Forest Preserve" instead. Both terms continue in use to thise day, with the former referring to the land inside the Blue Line and the latter to that portion owned by the state.

About thirty Walloon families settled on the shores of the Hudson River near what is present day New York City and on the Delaware River around 1624. The Dutch also established Fort Oranje near present-day Albany in 1624. New Amsterdam was established on the island of Manhattan a year later by Peter Minuit. After the English took over in the 1660s, the colony was renamed New York, after the Duke of York, the future King James II of England.

Financial crisis hit the city in the mid-1970s, when it briefly appeared that the city might have to declare bankruptcy (see John Lindsay). The fiscal crisis resulted largely from the combination of generous welfare spending by the city government in the 1960s and the stock market and economic stagnation of the 1970s. President Gerald R.