September 11 – "Discovering" Manhattan

Posted on September 11, 2017

I've said it before, and I'll have to say it again, but the word "discover" is really tricky when we are talking about European explorers. They "discovered" lands that they hadn't known existed - but other peoples knew about these lands, of course. Usually, people were actually living in the lands that some white guy just claimed for his king!!

Henry Hudson did not explore for his king. He was an Englishman, but he explored on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. His goal was to find a Northwest Passage to Asia, where valuable spices and silks and other trade items could be found. 

Hudson explored the North Atlantic and what is now Canada and the northeastern U.S., in four different expeditions.

The map above shows all four Hudson voyages.

The map below is a close-up on the New World parts
of his voyages and can be understood more easily.

On this date in 1609, Henry Hudson "discovered" Manhattan Island. Of course, people called the Lenape were already living there. Actually, a Florentine explorer named Giovanni da Verrazzano had already been there, as well. He was sailing on behalf of the French King, and he had given a variety of features French names.

This picture contrasts today's Manhattan
with what it looked like in Hudson's time.

But it turned out that the European colony later built on Manhattan Island was Dutch, not French, and the "very big river" Verrazzano had described was named the Hudson River, not the Verrazzano River. So being there first doesn't always matter. 

By the way, on Hudson's last voyage, in 1611, his crew mutinied and put Hudson, his teenage son, and seven crewmen into a small boat with a few supplies - and Hudson and the rest of the marooned men were never seen again.

Also on this date:

Liberation Day in Pohnpei 

Day of Catalonia in Spain

Theft of the French Blue

Anniversary of the recording of the first Beatle's single

Patriot Day

National Day of Service

National Day of Remembrance 

(all three in the U.S.)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• September holidays
• September birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in September

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• October holidays
• October birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in October

April 26, 2013 - Happy Birthday, Frederick Law Olmsted

Here's a fellow who was a landscape architect before there was such a thing as a landscape architect!

Olmsted, who was born on this date in 1822, was also a journalist and a public administrator, and he probably called his work with landscapes “designing,” but many now say that he was the father of landscape architecture.

What do landscape architects do? Well, Olmsted and a man named Calvert Vaux designed New York City's Central Park and Brooklyn's Prospect Park. They designed other major parks in other cities as well.

A landscape architect designs outdoor public areas and landmarks. She or he studies existing elements of an area—buildings, skylines, trees, lakes or streams—and come up with a concept of what the outcome should be. The hard part, of course, is figuring out what plants and sprinkler systems, paving and storm drains, trees and structures should be installed in order to achieve that outcome. The job is a combination of architecture, urban planning, gardening, environmental analysis, and recreation planning.

Central Park is a huge public park at the center of Manhattan in New York City. When it opened in 1857, the park had 778 acres of land (it is now larger, with 843 acres). These days, about 35 million people visit the park every year—making this the most visited city park in the U.S.

Central Park has several lakes and ponds, plenty of walking paths, several bridle paths (for people on horseback), two ice-skating rinks (one of which becomes a swimming pool in the summer!), a zoo, a formal garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a forest. AND there is an outdoor theater, a “castle” with a nature center, a marionette theater, and an historic carousel. AND there are at least 3 fountains, 7 major lawns, a meadow, a huge boulder outcropping, smaller swaths of grass, and multiple enclosed playgrounds for kids.

It's a great place! One of my favorite spots is the boulder area, and another is the Alice in Wonderland statue.

The thing is, these lakes and forests and meadows and boulder outcroppings look so natural. It looks very much as if Olmsted and Vaux just had to plan a few paths in between some great natural features. However, almost all these features are landscaped. They were carefully designed to look NOT designed! Cool, huh?

Did you know...?

More gunpowder was used to clear the area than was used at the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War.

During construction, more than 18,500 cubic yards of topsoil were brought in from New Jersey, and more than 10 million cartloads of rocks and soil was taken out of the park! More than 4 million trees, shrubs, and other plants were transplanted in the park.

Sheep used to graze on the Sheep Meadow in Central Park, but they were moved to a more rural area of New York in 1934. City officials worried that they would be killed and eaten by hungry people during the depression!

Also on this date:

Richter Scale Day 

Naturalist and artist John Audubon's birthday

Anniversary of a major meteor shower