• 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano sails into New York Harbor. 
  •  1609 Henry Hudson sails up the Hudson River. 
  •  1621 The Dutch West India Company begins trading from New York City. 
  •  1626 The Dutch pay 60 guilders ($24) to the Lenape Tribe for the island of New Amsterdam. 
  • 1664 The Dutch surrender New Amsterdam to the British and the island is renamed after the brother of King Charles II, the Duke of York. 
  • 1765 The Sons of Liberty burn the British governor in effigy. 
  • 1776 Independence from England is declared. 1789 The first Congress is held at Federal Hall on Wall Street, and George Washington is inaugurated.
  •  1792 The first stock exchange is established on Wall Street.
  •  1820 New York City is the nation’s largest city, with a population of 124,000. 
  •  1859 Central Park opens. 
  •  1863 The draft riots rage throughout New York; 125 people die, including 11 African-Americans who are lynched by mobs of Irish immigrants. 
  •  1883 The Brooklyn Bridge opens. 
  •  1886 The Statue of Liberty is completed. 
  •  1892 Ellis Island opens, processing over a million immigrants yearly.
  •  1904 The first subway departs from City Hall. 
  •  1920 Babe Ruth joins the New York Yankees. 
  •  1923 Old Yankee Stadium opens.
  •  1929 The stock market crashes. 
  •  1931 The Empire State Building opens and is the tallest building in the world. 
  •  1939 The New York World’s Fair opens in Flushing Meadows, Queens. 
  •  1947 The Brooklyn Dodgers sign Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the Major Leagues.
  •  1957 Elvis Presley performs live in New York on the Ed Sullivan Show. 
  •  1969 The gay rights movement begins with the Stonewall Rebellion in Greenwich Village. 
  •  1990 David Dinkins becomes the first African-American mayor of New York City. 
  • 2000 The New York Yankees beat the New York Mets in the first Subway Series in 44 years. New York’s population exceeds eight million. 
  • 2001 Terrorists use hijacked planes to crash into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, bringing the towers down and killing more than 3,000 people.
  •  2003 Smoking is banned in all restaurants and bars. 
  • 2006 Construction begins on the controversial Freedom Tower (its name later changed to One World Trade), to be built at the site of the World Trade Center. 
  • 2008 QB Eli Manning leads the Giants to a win in Super Bowl XXV (they may play in New Jersey, but they still call themselves the New York Giants). 
  • 2009 Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger successfully lands US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River, and all 155 people on board are saved in the so-called “Miracle on the Hudson." Both the Yankees and the Mets move into new stadiums, just in time for the financial meltdown that left fans complaining about the sky-high ticket prices. To make up for this affront, the Yankees win the World Series—their 27th. 
  • 2010 The New Meadowlands Stadium opens in East Rutherford, New Jersey, new home to both the New York Giants and the New York Jets. 
  • 2011 The National 9/11 Memorial opens on September 11th, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
  • 2011 The "Occupy Wall Street" movement debuts in Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park and quickly spreads to cities across the United States. The occpiers are unceremoniously booted from their encampment in November by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
  • 2012 Hurricane Sandy causes damaging flooding, swamping large areas of the city and displacing thousands of residents for months. Ellis Island, the South Street Seaport, the Police Museum and other tourist sites are shut down (some have yet to fully reopen).
  • 2014 National September 11 Museum opens.
  • 2015  The Whitney Museum relocates to the Meatpacking District.
  • 2016 After decades of planning and construction, the Second Avenue subway line finally opens. A bomb explodes in Chelsea; there are no deaths, but 29 are injured.
  • 2017 A terrorist in a truck kills 8 people along the Westside Highway. Months later, another attempted attack in midtown injures four. Over the course of the year, the city registers just 290 murders, the lowest number since 1928.
  • 2019 Hudson Yards, the United States' largest private real estate development opens on the far west side, bringing new skyscrapers, an arts center, a mall and the tallest observation deck in its hemisphere.
  • 2020 New York City is the first major metropolitan area in the United States to be hit with the coronarvirus, and it sends the city reeling, causing an unusually large number of deaths. The city rallies around its healthcare workers and first responders and gets through the crisis.

Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.