It is difficult to imagine what the first glimpse of New Netherland was like for the seventeenth-century European...
With assets at his death worth approximately $10,000,000, or 1/65 of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, Fortune magazine listed Stephen III as the tenth richest American of all-time. In 2006
The title is an acronym for the Australian Netherlands Committee on Old Dutch Shipwrecks. It was established in 1972 to maintain the sites and artifacts from the wrecks of 17th- and 18th-century Dutch ships off the coast of Western Australia.
Over the centuries the seas surrounding Great Britain have helped to halt or deter many invading forces. The most significant of these were the Spanish Armada in 1588, Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803–05, and Nazi Germany’s Operation “Seelöwe” in 1940.
Starting in the 15th century the colonial and maritime nations of Europe were consumed by the need to find a faster navigable route to the trading nations of Asia. Voyages to the Far East
Most dictionaries will give you only one definition of the word “waggoner,” that is, the driver of a wagon. They will also let you know that the preferred spelling is now “wagoner,” the other spelling being chiefly British.
At some point in the last 350 years, the expression een reis van Bontekoe [a Bontekoe journey] entered the Dutch language. It signifies a journey or enterprise that meets with unusually bad luck or significant obstacles. However, there is no connotation of failure here—on the contrary, it implies that the difficulties were overcome. The “Bontekoe” of the phrase is a Dutch East India Company (VOC) skipper called Willem Ysbrandtzoon Bontekoe.
One of the immortal myths associated with the Dutch “purchase” of Manhattan is that they bought the island for $24. Let’s ignore for now the meaning of “purchase” in this context, for this is yet another myth that needs busting. Let’s forget too for now that Manhattan was not acquired by the Dutch parting with hard cash, though the constant reference to the $24 seems to imply this.
In 1647, residents of Fort Orange were treated to a rare spectacle.
