The short version of the exhibit — each chapter matched to its episode. The full, cited text lives in the document.
Before it was New York — before it was New Amsterdam — the harbor was Lenapehoking, homeland of the Lenape. Verrazzano claimed it for France in 1524; Hudson sailed up the river for the Dutch in 1609; and in 1624 the first Walloon families landed on Governors Island.
In 1626 Peter Minuit arranged the acquisition of Manhattan for goods worth 60 guilders — the sole near-contemporary record is the Schaghen letter. The '$24 in beads' story is an 1844 conversion. Meanwhile the wampum-fur economy trapped out the beavers within two decades.
Four frigates under Colonel Nicolls sailed into the harbor in August 1664. Stuyvesant wanted to fight; the city did not. The Articles of Surrender were signed September 8 — no shot fired — and New Amsterdam became New York.
The flag changed; the names didn't. Breukelen, Haarlem, the Bouwerij, Vlissingen, Staaten Eylandt — the Dutch map of the city survived in its street signs.
1969: Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin ran for Mayor and City Council President on a platform of city statehood — cars banned from Manhattan, a circumferential monorail, free bicycles, and one car-free 'Sweet Sunday' a month. Mailer took 41,288 votes: fourth of five.
Two local laws — 1975 for the flag, 1977 for the seal — changed the city's inscribed date from 1664 to 1625. A mayoral aide's memo: 'I find no basis for 1625 as the founding date.' The mayor signed anyway.
One continuous cut of the whole season.