Almanac: Henry Hudson
And now a page from our “Sunday Morning” Almanac: September 11th, 1609, 407 years ago today ... the day a ship captained by Henry Hudson anchored near the mouth of the river that now bears his name.
Hudson was sailing on behalf of the Dutch aboard the Half Moon (a ship that was recreated in 1989).
He was looking for the elusive Northwest Passage ... an imagined shortcut between Europe and the Far East. What he discovered instead was an unspoiled island that the native people called “Mannahatta.”
Centuries later, the Mannahatta Project has recreated what that wooded island must have looked like.
- Rediscovering Henry Hudson (“Sunday
Morning,” 07/05/09)
Not that it stayed that way for long.
The Dutch established New Amsterdam in 1625, only to have the British conquer it and re-name it New York in 1664.
A huge and towering city came to rise on what we know today as Manhattan. And despite the horror of another September 11th, it rises still.
For more info:
- The Mariners’ Museum: Henry Hudson
- New Netherland Institute, Albany, N.Y.
- New Netherland Museum,
Albany, N.Y.
- Beyond Mannahatta: The Welikia Project
- Henry Hudson 400
- Hudson River Museum,
Yonkers, N.Y.