Friday, Nov. 11, 2011
THEN
On November 11, 1674, the English take control of New York after the Dutch cede the region formerly called New Netherlands.
Following the third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674), the Dutch hand over New York, pay the English 2,000,000 guilders, and agree to British nominal control of the seas in the region. The disputed territory returns to the status quo as it was before the war, meaning the Dutch return New Amsterdam and New Netherlands (now the city and region of New York) to the English. The Dutch keep Suriname in South America, which they had captured in 1667.
Originally a Dutch colony established in the interest of the fur trade, New Netherlands is first captured by the English in 1664 and renamed New York. The Dutch then retake the region during the third Anglo-Dutch War, but again hand the city over to the English in 1674.
NOW
Now, New York City, which is known as the city that doesn’t sleep, is home to over 8 million people and marked by a great diversity of culture. New York is also the city where those with big dreams go to see if they can make them real.
Unless they buy bottled water, New Yorkers drink some of the best city water in the world. Everyday over 1 billion gallons of water is brought south from natural reservoirs upstate and tested around 900 times to ensure its cleanliness.
In recent years however the possibility that toxic chemicals from natural gas extraction could contaminate New York’s water has worried many. The proposed method of extraction, so called fracking, used to extract the natural gas, involves injecting water and chemicals into not so porous shale beds to push out the gas trapped in the rock.
Currently the New York Department of Environmental Conservation is holding public town halls to hear citizen’s concerns about the issue and accepting online comments through Dec. 12.
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