1.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Schenectady, New York
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Schenectady /skᵻˈnɛktədi/ is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 66,135, the name Schenectady is derived from a Mohawk word skahnéhtati meaning beyond the pines. The city was founded on the side of the Mohawk River by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. They were prohibited from the fur trade by the Albany monopoly, residents of the new village developed farms on strip plots along the river. Connected to the west via the Mohawk River and Erie Canal, by 1824 more people worked in manufacturing than agriculture or trade, and the city had a cotton mill, processing cotton from the Deep South. Numerous mills in New York had such ties with the South, the city was part of emerging technologies, with GE collaborating in the production of nuclear-powered submarines and, in the 21st century, working on other forms of renewable energy. The city is in eastern New York, near the confluence of the Mohawk and it is in the same metropolitan area as the state capital, Albany, which is about 19 miles southeast. In December 2014, the announced that the city was one of three sites selected for development of off-reservation casino gambling, under terms of a 2013 state constitutional amendment. The project would redevelop an ALCO brownfield site in the city along the waterfront, with hotels, housing, when first encountered by Europeans, the Mohawk Valley was the territory of the Mohawk nation, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, or Haudenosaunee. They had occupied territory in the region since at least 1100 AD, in the 1640s, the Mohawk had three major villages, all on the south side of the Mohawk River. The easternmost one was Ossernenon, located about 9 miles west of present-day Auriesville, about 3200 acres of this unique ecosystem are now protected as the Albany Pine Bush. Eventually, this word entered the lexicon of the Dutch settlers, the settlers in Fort Orange used skahnéhtati to refer to the new village at the Mohawk flats, which became known as Schenectady. In 1661 Arent van Curler, a Dutch immigrant bought a big piece of land on the side of the Mohawk River. Other colonists were given grants of land by the government in this portion of the flat fertile river valley. The settlers recognized that these bottomlands had been cultivated for maize by the Mohawk for centuries, Van Curler took the largest piece of land, the remainder was divided into 50-acre plots for the other first fourteen proprietors. As most early colonists were from the Fort Orange area, they may have anticipated working as fur traders, the settlers here turned to farming. Their 50-acre lots were unique for the colony, laid out in strips along the Mohawk River, with the narrow edges fronting the river and they relied on rearing livestock and wheat. From the early days of interaction, early Dutch traders in the valley had unions with Mohawk women and their children were raised within the Mohawk community, which had a matrilineal kinship system, considering children born into the mothers clan
4.
New York's 20th congressional district
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The 20th Congressional District of New York is a congressional district for the United States House of Representatives in New Yorks Capital District. It includes all of Albany and Schenectady counties, and portions of Montgomery, Rensselaer, from 2003 to 2013, the 20th district surrounded the Capital District, which had been part of the 21st district. This district included all or parts of Columbia, Dutchess, Delaware, Essex, Greene, Otsego, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Warren and it included the cities of Glens Falls and Saratoga Springs. This largely rural district stretched to include parts of the Adirondacks, Catskills, on Nov 2,2010, Republican Chris Gibson defeated first term incumbent Democrat Scott Murphy, and took office on January 3,2011. In 2013, Gibson was redistricted to the 19th, paul Tonko now represents the district after redistricting. From the creation of the district in 1813 to 1833, two seats were apportioned, elected at-large on a general ticket, note that in New York State electoral politics there are numerous minor parties at various points on the political spectrum. Certain parties will endorse either the Republican or Democratic candidate for every office, hence the state electoral results contain both the party votes, and the final candidate votes. List of United States congressional districts New Yorks congressional districts United States congressional delegations from New York Martis, the Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress. The Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts
5.
Albany, New York
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Albany is the capital of the U. S. state of New York and the seat of Albany County. Roughly 150 miles north of New York City, Albany developed on the west bank of the Hudson River, the population of the City of Albany was 97,856 according to the 2010 census. With a Census-estimated population of 98,4242013, the Capital District is the third-most populous metropolitan region in the state and 38th in the United States. Fortune 500 companies that have offices in Albany include American Express, J. P. Morgan and Chase, Merrill Lynch, General Electric, Verizon, Goldman Sachs, International Paper, and Key Bank. In the 21st century, the Capital District has emerged as an anchor of Tech Valley. This was the first European settlement in the state, settled by Dutch colonists who built Fort Nassau for fur trading in 1614 and they formed successful relations with both the Mahican and the Mohawk peoples, two major Native American nations in the region. The fur trade attracted settlers who founded a village called Beverwijck near Fort Orange, in 1664 the English took over the Dutch settlements, renaming the city as Albany, in honor of the then Duke of Albany, the future James II of England and James VII of Scotland. The city was chartered in 1686 under English rule. It became the capital of New York State in 1797, following the United States gaining independence in the American Revolutionary War, Albany is one of the oldest surviving settlements of the original British thirteen colonies, and the longest continuously chartered city in the United States. Its charter is possibly the longest-running instrument of government in the Western Hemisphere. During the late 18th century and throughout most of the 19th, Albany was a center of trade, Albanys main exports at the time were beer, lumber, published works, and ironworks. Beginning in 1810, Albany was one of the ten most populous cities in the United States, in the 20th century, the city opened one of the first commercial airports in the world, the precursor of todays Albany International Airport. During the 1920s a powerful political machine controlled by the Democratic Party arose in the state capital and it marshalled the power of immigrants and their descendants in both cities. In the early 21st century, Albany has experienced growth in the high-technology industry, Albany has been a center of higher education for over a century, with much of the remainder of its economy dependent on state government and health care services. The city has rebounded from the decline of the 1970s and 1980s. Albany is known for its history, commerce, culture, architecture. Albany won the All-America City Award in both 1991 and 2009, Albany is one of the oldest surviving European settlements from the original thirteen colonies and the longest continuously chartered city in the United States. The Hudson River area was inhabited by Algonquian-speaking Mohican, who called it Pempotowwuthut-Muhhcanneuw
6.
Troy, New York
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Troy is a city in the U. S. State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the edge of Rensselaer County. Troy has close ties to the cities of Albany and Schenectady. The city is one of the three centers for the Albany Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 1,170,483. At the 2010 census, the population of Troy was 50,129, troja est, which means Ilium was, Troy is. Before European arrival, the area was settled by the Mahican Indian tribe, the Dutch began settling in the mid 17th century, the patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer called the area Pafraets Dael, after his mother. Control of New York passed to the English in 1664 and in 1707 Derick Van der Heyden purchased a farm near todays downtown area, in 1771, Abraham Lansing had his farm in todays Lansingburgh laid out into lots. Responding to Lansings success to the north, in 1787, Van der Heydens grandson Jacob had his extensive holdings surveyed and laid out into lots as well, in 1789, Troy got its current name after a vote of the people. In 1791, Troy was incorporated as a town and extended east across the county to the Vermont line, in 1796, Troy became a village and in 1816 it became a city. Lansingburgh, to the north, became part of Troy in 1900, prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Mohican Indians had a number of settlements along the Hudson River near the confluence with the Mohawk River. The land comprising the Poesten Kill and Wynants Kill areas were owned by two Mohican groups, the land around the Poesten Kill was owned by Skiwias and was called Panhooseck. The area around the Wynants Kill, was known as Paanpack, was owned by Peyhaunet, the land between the creeks, which makes up most of downtown and South Troy, was owned by Annape. South of the Wynants Kill and into present-day North Greenbush, the land was owned by Pachquolapiet and these parcels of land were sold to the Dutch between 1630 and 1657 and each purchase was overseen and signed by Skiwias, the sachem at the time. In total, more than 75 individual Mohicans were involved in deed signings in the 17th century, the site of the city was a part of Rensselaerswyck, a patroonship created by Kiliaen van Rensselaer. Dirck Van der Heyden was one of the first settlers, in 1707, he purchased a farm of 65 acres which in 1787 was laid out as a village. One skeleton was female and Caucasian with an iron ring, the other was Native-American and male. The name Troy was adopted in 1789 before which it had known as Ashleys Ferry. The township included Brunswick and Grafton, Troy became a village in 1801 and was chartered as a city in 1816
7.
Hudson River
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The Hudson River is a 315-mile river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York in the United States. The river originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York, flows through the Hudson Valley, the river serves as a political boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York, and further north between New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary occupying the Hudson Fjord, tidal waters influence the Hudsons flow from as far north as Troy. The river is named after Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, who explored it in 1609, and after whom Canadas Hudson Bay is also named. The Dutch called the river the North River – with the Delaware River called the South River –, during the eighteenth century, the river valley and its inhabitants were the subject and inspiration of Washington Irving, the first internationally acclaimed American author. In the nineteenth century, the area inspired the Hudson River School of landscape painting, the Hudson was also the eastern outlet for the Erie Canal, which, when completed in 1825, became an important transportation artery for the early-19th-century United States. The source of the Hudson River is Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondack Park at an altitude of 4,322 feet, the river is not cartographically called the Hudson River until miles downstream. From that point on, the stream is known as the Hudson River. Popular culture and convention, however, more often cite the photogenic Lake Tear of the Clouds as the source, South of the confluence of Indian Pass Brook and Calamity Brook, the Hudson River flows south into Sanford Lake. South of the outlet of the lake, the Opalescent River flows into the Hudson, the Hudson then flows south, taking in Beaver Brook and the outlet of Lake Harris. After its confluence with the Indian River, the Hudson forms the boundary between Essex and Hamilton counties, in the hamlet of North River, the Hudson flows entirely in Warren County and takes in the Schroon River. Further south, the forms the boundary between Warren and Saratoga Counties. The river then takes in the Sacandaga River from the Great Sacandaga Lake, shortly thereafter, the river leaves the Adirondack Park, flows under Interstate 87, and through Glens Falls, just south of Lake George although receiving no streamflow from the lake. It next goes through Hudson Falls, at this point the river forms the boundary between Washington and Saratoga Counties. At this point the river has an altitude of 200 feet, further south the Hudson takes in water from the Batten Kill River and Fish Creek near Schuylerville. The river then forms the boundary between Saratoga and Rensselaer counties, the river then enters the heart of the Capital District. It takes in water from the Hoosic River, which extends into Massachusetts, shortly thereafter the river has its confluence with the Mohawk River, the largest tributary of the Hudson River, in Waterford. Shortly thereafter, the river reaches the Federal Dam in Troy, at an elevation of 2 feet, the bottom of the dam marks the beginning of the tidal influence in the Hudson as well as the beginning of the lower Hudson River
8.
Mohawk people
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The Mohawk people are the most easterly tribe of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking indigenous people of North America, the Mohawk were historically based in the Mohawk Valley in present-day upstate New York west of the Hudson River, their territory ranged north to the St. As one of the five members of the Iroquois League. For hundreds of years, they guarded the Iroquois Confederation against invasion from that direction by tribes from the New England and their current major settlements include areas around Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence River in Canada and New York. In the Mohawk language, the say that they are from Kanienkehá. The Mohawk became wealthy traders as other nations in their confederacy needed their flint for tool making and their Algonquian-speaking neighbors, the people of Muh-heck Haeek Ing, a name transliterated by the Dutch as Mohican or Mahican, referred to the People of Ka-nee-en Ka as Maw Unk Lin. The Dutch heard and wrote this term as Mohawk, and also referred to the Mohawk as Egil or Maqua, the French colonists adapted these latter terms as Aignier and Maqui, respectively. They also referred to the people by the generic Iroquois, a French derivation of the Algonquian term for the Five Nations, the Algonquians and Iroquois were traditional competitors and enemies. The Mohawk had extended their own influence into the St. Lawrence River Valley and they are believed to have defeated the St. Lawrence Iroquoians in the 16th century, and kept control of their territory. In addition to hunting and fishing, for centuries the Mohawk cultivated productive maize fields on the floodplains along the Mohawk River. The Dutch were primarily merchants and the French also conducted fur trading and their Jesuit missionaries were active among First Nations and Native Americans, seeking converts to Catholicism. In 1614, the Dutch opened a trading post at Fort Nassau, the Dutch initially traded for furs with the local Mahican, who occupied the territory along the Hudson River. European contact resulted in a smallpox epidemic among the Mohawk in 1635. For instance, Johannes Megapolensis, a Dutch minister, recorded the spelling of the three villages as Asserué, Banagiro, and Thenondiogo. While the Dutch later established settlements in present-day Schenectady and Schoharie, further west in the Mohawk Valley, Schenectady was established essentially as a farming settlement, where Dutch took over some of the former Mohawk maize fields in the floodplain along the river. Through trading, the Mohawk and Dutch became allies of a kind, during their alliance, the Mohawks allowed Dutch Protestant missionary Johannes Megapolensis to come into their tribe and teach the Christian message. He operated from the Fort Nassau area about six years, writing a record in 1644 of his observations of the Mohawk, their language, and their culture. While he noted their ritual of torture of captives, he recognized that their society had few other killings, especially compared to the Netherlands of that period
9.
Iroquois
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The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee are a historically powerful northeast Native American confederacy. The Iroquois have absorbed many other peoples into their cultures as a result of warfare, adoption of captives, the historic Erie, Susquehannock, Wyandot, and St. Lawrence Iroquoians, all independent peoples, spoke Iroquoian languages. In 2010, more than 45,000 enrolled Six Nations people lived in Canada, the most common name for the confederacy, Iroquois, is of somewhat obscure origin. The first time it appears in writing is in the account of Samuel de Champlain of his journey to Tadoussac in 1603, other spellings occurring in the earliest sources include Erocoise, Hiroquois, Hyroquoise, Irecoies, Iriquois, Iroquaes, Irroquois, and Yroquois. In the French spoken at the time, this would have been pronounced as or. In 1883, Horatio Hale wrote that the Charlevoix etymology was dubious, Hale suggested instead that the term came from Huron, and was cognate with Mohawk ierokwa they who smoke or Cayuga iakwai a bear. Hewitt responded to Hales etymology in 1888 by expressing doubt that either of those words even exist in the respective languages, a more modern etymology is that advocated by Gordon M. Day in 1968, who elaborates upon an earlier etymology given by Charles Arnaud in 1880. Arnaud had claimed that the word came from Montagnais irnokué, meaning terrible man, Day proposes a hypothetical Montagnais phrase irno kwédač, meaning a man, an Iroquois, as the origin of this term. More recently, Peter Bakker has proposed a Basque origin for Iroquois. g and he proposes instead that the word derives from hilokoa, from the Basque roots hil to kill, ko, and a. He also argues that the /l/ was rendered as /r/ since the former is not attested in the inventory of any language in the region. Thus the word according to Bakker is translatable as the killer people, a different term, Haudenosaunee, is the designation more commonly used by the Iroquois to refer to themselves. It is also preferred by scholars of Native American history who consider the name Iroquois to be derogatory in origin. An alternate designation, Ganonsyoni, is encountered as well. More transparently, the Iroquois confederacy is also referred to simply as the Six Nations. The history of the Iroquois Confederacy goes back to its formation by the Peacemaker in 1142, each nation within the Iroquoian family had a distinct language, territory and function in the League. Iroquois influence extended into present-day Canada, westward along the Great Lakes, the League is governed by a Grand Council, an assembly of fifty chiefs or sachems, each representing one of the clans of one of the nations. The original Iroquois League or Five Nations, occupied areas of present-day New York State up to the St. Lawrence River, west of the Hudson River. The League was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, in or close to 1722, the Tuscarora tribe joined the League, having migrated from the Carolinas after being displaced by Anglo-European settlement
10.
Maize
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Maize, also known as corn, is a large grain plant first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, the leafy stalk of the plant produces separate pollen and ovuliferous inflorescences or ears, which are fruits, yielding kernels or seeds. Maize kernels are used in cooking as a starch. Most historians believe maize was domesticated in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico, recent research modified this view somewhat, scholars now indicate the adjacent Balsas River Valley of south-central Mexico as the center of domestication. The Olmec and Mayans cultivated maize in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica, cooked and its believed that beginning about 2500 BC, the crop spread through much of the Americas. The region developed a network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops. Nevertheless, recent data indicates that the spread of maize took place even earlier, according to Piperno, A large corpus of data indicates that it was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP. Since then, even earlier dates have been published, the study also demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Later, maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths and this is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. Before they were domesticated, maize plants only grew small,25 millimetres long corn cobs, Maize is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas, with 361 million metric tons grown in the United States in 2014. Approximately 40% of the crop—130 million tons—is used for corn ethanol, genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. After the arrival of Europeans in 1492, Spanish settlers consumed maize and explorers and traders carried it back to Europe, Spanish settlers far preferred wheat bread to maize, cassava, or potatoes. Maize flour could not be substituted for wheat for bread, since in Christian belief only wheat could undergo transubstantiation. At another level, Spaniards worried that by eating indigenous foods, which they did not consider nutritious, that not only would they weaken, despite these worries, Spaniards did consume maize and archeological evidence from Florida sites indicate they cultivated it as well. Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates and it was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbuss voyages and then spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere. The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous Taíno word for the plant and it is known by other names around the world. The word corn outside North America, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize, this usage started as a shortening of Indian corn. Indian corn primarily means maize, but can more specifically to multicolored flint corn used for decoration
Schenectady County, New York
