United States: New York City Celebrates 400th Anniversary.

Section: General News - Four hundred years ago this month, Henry Hudson, looking for a sea route to Asia, sailed into what is now New York Harbor. His arrival is celebrated as the beginning of Dutch settlement in North America. A few years later, Dutch traders established New Amsterdam to trade animal furs with local Indians. Today that settlement is known as New York City.

New York City has such a distinctive look it's hard to imagine it was once a small Dutch settlement.

But at New York's South Street Seaport Museum, a centuries-old document proves the Dutch did indeed pay for this land.

Martin Berendse, the Director of the Netherlands National Archives, …