History of Sorts

One of my favourite songs is from a band called Extreme it is called “When I first kissed you” The opening line goes as follows.”New York city can be so pretty from a bird’s eye view” If history had gone a slightly different direction the lyrics to that song would not have  been the same.

On this day in 1664 Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrenders New Amsterdam, the capital of New Netherland, to an English naval squadron under Colonel Richard Nicolls. Stuyvesant had hoped to resist the English, but he was an unpopular ruler, and his Dutch subjects refused to rally around him.

Following its capture, New Amsterdam’s name was changed to New York, in honor of the Duke of York, who organized the mission.

The colony of New Netherland was established by the Dutch West India Company in 1624 and grew to encompass all of present-day New York City and…