In 1624 the Dutch established a colony on what’s now Manhattan Island called New Amsterdam. It was renamed New York once the British took control of the area in 1664. But after the American Revolution in 1776, New York became a U.S. colony, then a state in 1788. One year later, George Washington was sworn in as the United States’ first president in New York City, then the country’s capital. (It would move to Washington, D.C., the next year, in 1790.)

Source: National Geographic