New York Public Library
An illustration thought to be that
of the English explorer Henry Hudson.
Posted on 03/29/2009 6:35:03 AM PDT by Pharmboy
New York Public Library
An illustration thought to be that
of the English explorer Henry Hudson.
National Maritime Museum Amsterdam/Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum
A 17th-century navigation journal at the Museum of the City of New York.
Looking for something to celebrate? How about the commemoration of New York’s 400th birthday beginning next Saturday?
On April 4, 1609, the English navigator Henry Hudson left Amsterdam harbor to search for a shortcut to Asia. Hudson’s instructions from the Dutch East India Company were to sail east, as he had on two earlier voyages that were thwarted by Arctic ice.
Instead, inspired by insights gleaned from other explorers, Hudson steered his triple-masted ship toward the New World in hopes of discovering a Northwest Passage to Asia.
The 400th anniversary of Hudson’s departure will be celebrated this week in Amsterdam and in Manhattan, where the Museum of the City of New York opens “Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson.”
The exhibition includes 275 artifacts in an installation that evokes the hull of Hudson’s 85-foot-long ship, the Half Moon. snip...
Hudson and his crew received a decidedly mixed reception from the natives. Today, New York’s diverse population includes more American Indians and more people who identify their ancestry as Dutch than any other big American city.
And that is precisely the point of the museum’s exhibition: New York is and has always been different from other places in America because it was founded by the Dutch.
“The Dutch were the first to overthrow a king and create a republic,” said Sarah Henry, chief curator of the museum. “Nobody was celebrating tolerance, but the Dutch had a pragmatic approach to diversity.”
The exhibition — in collaboration with the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam and the New Netherland Project in
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Adjacent to Central Park—Fifth and 103rd.
“The Dutch were the first to overthrow a king and create a republic,” said Sarah Henry, chief curator of the museum. “Nobody was celebrating tolerance, but the Dutch had a pragmatic approach to diversity.”
No they weren’t. The Romans did it 2000 years plus earlier.
Also, Iceland is the oldest republic in Europe, not the Netherlands.
THANKS, bfl
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