New York State historical timeline

Origins

The Haudenosaunee — the Iroquois Confederacy of six nations — governed much of what is now upstate New York with a constitutional structure that predates European contact, and the Lenape and Mohican peoples held the lower Hudson.

Turning points

The Dutch founded a trading settlement at the mouth of the Hudson in 1624 and lost it to the English in 1664, who renamed it for the Duke of York. The surrender at Saratoga in 1777 brought France into the Revolutionary War and is generally counted its turning point.

Influential people

The Erie Canal, opened in 1825, connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic and made New York the country's dominant port almost overnight. Every city along its route — Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo — grew because of it.

Cultural evolution

Between 1892 and 1954 some twelve million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island, and the city they arrived in was remade by them repeatedly.

Present-day significance

Finance, media and culture concentrated in the city; upstate has spent decades converting from heavy industry, with mixed results that are visible from any road.